At my wit's end.

[sekaiNdobes]

I *knew* the good feeding response was too good to be true...

My 1.0 normal hit 600g three months ago, and he's decided that eating isn't one of his hobbies anymore.

Nothing much has changed, at least not from when he was eating regularly.

Temps - 81 cool, 92 warm, 65-70 percent humidity. Same hides as he's always had (nice snug, dark, cave-type), same temps, same substrate (aspen), same water bowl. Had a fecal run, nothing out of the ordinary.

He *was* in a 20 long, but moved him over to a tub a month ago, to see if it would help. It didn't, obviously.

Won't touch f/t. Only mice for sale around here are tiny, so I've been leery of giving him mice... as I was advised that it would take more energy to digest a mouse than he'd get from it. I'd be open to the idea of feedng multiple mice, I'm just concerned he wouldn't take them - or only take one.

We always prescent the room - he comes right out of his hide within minutes of the rat in the room, and is VERY interested until the rat is in the enclosure with him... then he loses interest, sort of. He'll go right up to the rat and sniff it, poke it, inspect it... then wig out and go into major avoidance mode. Within seconds, he's interested again - goes through the same sniffing/inspecting behavior again.

Freshly killed rat - nope.
F/T rat - nope.
Live rat - nope.
Live rat that has sat in dirty mouse bedding for awhile - nope.
The car ride trick - nope.

To my knowledge, he's never been bitten - I supervise all feeding, and I've never seen him harassed or bitten by any of his meals.

I feel like I'm stressing him out by all these failed feedings. He's dropped to 550 - so he's lost 50g in 3 months.

So if this was your snake, what would you do? THANK YOU in advance for any replies I get...

[Mindibun]

Firstly, some snakes will just stop eating during winter. It's no big deal. But, if you don't think its that kind of refusal to eat, then I would just give her what she wants. I have a ball python that was a mouser for a LONG time. She just refused rats no matter what. So, I'd buy two or three mice at a time and feed them one after another. She would also only eat live, so I had to find some way of keeping three mice while slowly feeding them off one by one. (Sentimental me had to keep the mice that were not currently being eaten out of the room of the "carnage." I didn't want them to know death was coming. I'm a bleeding heart; I know.) Anyway, I was finally able to switch her over by getting her used to f/t mice and then one day sneaking in a f/t rat. Once she'd eaten it, she was ok eating live or f/t rats. I had to be sneaky.

[Muze]

I have three males that all stopped eating during the beginning of breeding season (all were between 550-850 grams). They all did the same things you are describing (except I feed F/T). I got two back on feed (& up a few hundred grams) by feeding ASFs. The other one is still off feed. He is not losing weight though, so I am not worried.

[sekaiNdobes]

I really need to pick up some ASFs - the only place around here sells them for $15 apiece though, ugh!

So, maybe next week I should try mice? I don't want to spring many changes on this guy all at once, but if you more experienced keepers think it'll be okay, I'll trust your judgement.

[Muze]

Eek! $15? Were are you located? You can try mice if you haven't already. It's never worked for me, but I've heard it's worked for others. Even the ASFs did not work for my one guy. But the other two absolutely love their ASFs (they were never very enthusiastic about feeding on mice/rats before, so I'll just leave them on ASFs).

[sekaiNdobes]

I'm in central Iowa. The only place I've found for ASFs is a nasty, dirty pet store run by the craziest guy I've ever met.

Thanks for your help!

[Muze]

I'm in central Iowa. The only place I've found for ASFs is a nasty, dirty pet store run by the craziest guy I've ever met.

Thanks for your help!

Lol! We had one of those here too. He just closed down his store a few weeks ago. I'll admit, I rescued some of the reps before he closed down.