Need advise

[jablount14]

Hey

Well I"m new to the hobby and was wondering if ya'll could help me a little with this. I bought a amel from my friend who owns a pet store who got a bunch of them from the daytona show. The amel is about 12 inches give or take. My friend said he was a good eater. Well I bought him 1 1/2 weeks ago on a thursday. HE was fed on that weds. On the next weds he would not eat his live pinkie. So i decided to skip that week and see if he would eat this weds when i feed my okeetee. Do ya'll think thats okay. He is looking kinda skinny. I think i know why he refussed to eat last weds. I think he was a little to stressed every day i would handle him at least once for a few min's. This past week i have not touched him at all just let him play in his viv.

[DAND]

Could it be getting close to shedding? Are the temps high enough?

[SnakeLuvrs]

Hey

Well I"m new to the hobby and was wondering if ya'll could help me a little with this. I bought a amel from my friend who owns a pet store who got a bunch of them from the daytona show. The amel is about 12 inches give or take. My friend said he was a good eater. Well I bought him 1 1/2 weeks ago on a thursday. HE was fed on that weds. On the next weds he would not eat his live pinkie. So i decided to skip that week and see if he would eat this weds when i feed my okeetee. Do ya'll think thats okay. He is looking kinda skinny. I think i know why he refussed to eat last weds. I think he was a little to stressed every day i would handle him at least once for a few min's. This past week i have not touched him at all just let him play in his viv.


yeah you are supposed to let them acclimate... what are your temps in the cage? how big is your cage? what is your bedding? .. he will be fine for the week. I would suggest not feeing on your substrate, unless it is newpaper or papertowel...

[~slither~]

This is going to sound really stupid but is he used to taking f/t? My girl will refuse a live rat but will happily take a f/t. The only reason I know is that I recently started breeding my own and didn't mind giving a small live rat. She refused, the same the next week. I then tried f/t and she took it immediately. I have since tested it and had the same results, wouldn't take live but happily takes f/t. She must just be lazy. lol. :)

[jablount14]

YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!
I got him to eat.
I will give you the play by play. When I came home I washed both of the pinkies off under water and a little soap. I put my Okeetee in a bag that the pinkie came with and closed the bag suddenly all I herd was the loud pitch squeak of a pinkie scream. 20 mins later I looked in the bag pinkie gone big fat belly on the Okeetee. Now next to problem child the Amel. I also stuck him inside the brown paper bag the pinkie came in came back an hour later opened the bag pinkie still inside Amel just chilling. So then I went outside caught myself a baby gecko waved it in front of his face and BAM he ate it. Well gecko's are very small when they are babies, so I caught two more and this time I put the stunned geckos on the bed and BAM he ate both of them, so my conclusion to this is my Amel has the appetite that the Miami phases have... :) I’m so happy...

[jablount14]

Well both of the little guys share a 10 gallon together with plenty of hidding spots. I have a under sticky mat heater with a couple peices of paper duck taped on top of the glass so that the guys cant get burnt. the hot side is about 86 and the cold side is about 77. I use aspen, I have two hidding spot on the hot side and 3 on the cool side with some jungle vine for them to crawl up on and a nice shallow rock water dish for them placed on the cool side... They seem to both have a couple favorite places to hide, but both are very active during about 1:00 pm through 9:00 pm....thanks for ya'lls help. love the new hobby

[jablount14]

One more thing befor I get preached to about feeding my snake the house gecko's. I know the risk i took feeding him the geckos. possible could have parasites, bacteria etc, but the way he was looking was pretty bad very skinny and not too healthy looking. I will break him from feeding him geckos next week and only feed him pinkies, but I'm glad he ate though...

[Taceas]

Glad you got it to eat. However the much safer alternative would be to try all feeding tactic options before just giving up and resorting to feeding wild-caught live prey. To me, only having it for a couple of weeks when its not in any dire danger of dying from starvation and the whole thing sounds like a "hey lets feed it wild caught lizards cuz its kool 'n stuff".

Yes, wild food has the propensity for carrying diseases and parasites. Most notably worms and protazoans. Both of which since residing in a reptilian host lizard can be easily passed onto a reptilian snake. Not that far of a stretch.

If the snake's immune system is compromised by a current disease or parasite, the wild stuff would surely not help the situation along, even if it did provide some nourishmen. And could potentially further worsen the health of the snake.

Like Slither suggested, I've got a couple of snakes that will only eat a dead rodent. If its live, they strike in fear and run from it. If its dead however, they come out to eat when they're most comfortable. That could have been its issue all along.

Scenting is the most widely accepted practice if you must do the alternative food choice thing. Once finding out that its interested in house geckos, all you have to do is to rub the pinky all over the gecko and see if that works. Nine times out of ten, it does. The same works for anoles. However once they get that taste for lizard food, most are very reluctant to being switched back to rodent prey. So that is why usually offering lizard food is the LAST resort, not the second.

What boggles my mind is that you bought two live pinks, came home and tortured them under running water and soap....and then ended up feeding your snake an unclean wild lizard with god-knows what on the outside and inside, anyway. Makes no sense at all to me what so ever. But then again I'm female AND blonde, so maybe I missed some logic somewhere along the way.

The fact that you're also housing two snakes of unknown ages and origins together when you're worried about one's reluctance towards eating already, further worries me. Do a few searches on here about "cohabitation" or "cannibalism" and see what comes up. Its common acceptance to not house snakes together as they are not a social-loving creature and are highly solitary in nature. And if it MUST be done whether through obstinance, ignorance, or laziness...even then a period of 3-4 months of quarantine is recommended to assure that there is no disease or parasite present before introductions is a better bet.

But hey, you know the dangers right?

[Mary-Beth]

Agree with everything said so far, just wanted to add MO.

Maybe the hatchling didn't want to eat because it was stressed out from the coohabitation. You did say it was eatting before you got it.

[jablount14]

yes i did say it was eating, but that did come from the mouth of a pet store empl even though he is my friend. The snake was not looking so well. They are both hatchlings.