Quote Originally Posted by spiffturk View Post
I don't mean to thread-jack from Angie, but I figure this is probably a better place than starting another "My snake isn't eating!" thread.

The short version is, my 2.5-3 year old female has decided to go on a hunger strike as of late October or so. Up until then, she'd been eating F/T pretty regularly. Not every time it was offered, which was disconcerting, but most of the time, and often enough that I just accepted it. But now it's been almost four months, and, frankly, I'm a little freaked out. I know they can go a damn long time without feeding, but I can't help getting worried.

I understand BPs will often go off feed seasonally, during the winter months. During about what time frame is this seasonal fasting normal, then? That is, at what point do I get more justifiably worried?

She looks healthy, as far as I can ascertain, and no weird behavior--just hides until evening, pokes her head out until it's all dark, then explores the cage at night.

I don't have pictures at the moment, but she's in an RBI enclosure, with two radiant heat panels, each on its own herpstat-- one set at 84, the other at 92. She's got identical hides on either side (also from RBI, and they seem a good size to me)-- she prefers the cooler hide almost exclusively. Humidity is right at 50%.

I'll try to get some pics up tomorrow, if they'd be helpful.

Thanks,

--
Will
She is at the appropriate age where her body is telling her that it's time to breed, and this can cause her to go off of food. I'd wait a while on it, so long as she still looks healthy there is no cause for concern. One thing that has worked for me with my F/T eaters is to actually offer a live rat, in order to spur them back onto food. Sometimes with just a single meal in their stomach it snaps them out of non-feeding behavior, then go immediately back to F/T.

You can try that, but otherwise just wait it out.

JonV