Feeding Story

[Nanci]

Maizey is my adult WC that I have had for almost two years. She fed flawlessly on a FT adult mouse for about the first year, then stopped eating for six weeks the end of this summer. For some reason, I went to live rat pups, which were treated with disdain- she'd rather have one riding around on her back than eat one...Eventually, we settled on FK adult mice. She also made it plain that she would like to eat every 10-14 days rather than weekly. And that she would like to be left alone for an hour or three instead of being expected to eat in the first ten minutes.

So we've had this truce- but everyone else here knows FT- it's what's for dinner, and I really wanted to get her switched back. This afternoon, I bought a FK mouse, and a frozen. The girl at the shop asked if I wanted medium or large- I told her large- that's what I always get.

So I get home, and open the fresh bag- intending to let the mouse smell waft into Maizey's viv to get her appetite going. Whoa! It's a black mouse!! I've never fed anything other than white! Ok...Deal with that later. After an hour of pre-tempting her, I got out the frozen mouse to thaw. This thing is a behemoth! The largest mouse I have ever seen- the king of mice. So I thaw him out, (did not wash) and then, in case she just doesn't like soggy mice- blow dry him. I'm rolling him around, fluffing up his fur- it was kind of weird. Then I cut four slits in him just to be sure. She's never had a slitted mouse.

Put her in, cover her up, stay away for an hour, and she ate!! She has got the biggest bulge I have ever seen in her. I am so proud of her! Black mouse went into the freezer for future use.

Nanci

[TheHated]

Ahh poor giant black mouse

[Tula_Montage]

We need pictures of her and bulge :) I dont think iv ever seen maizey? I demand photo photo! now lol

Itsnt it a great feeling when feeding methods finally work out!

[Nanci]

It doesn't look that big in the picture (and she is VERY displeased about being dragged out of her hides- yes, she was occupying two- warm and intermediate)
but compare the bulge to her slender neck...

Nanci

[Jrgh17]

Honestly, I'm very glad for you (and Maizey, of course), but I'm still trying to get over the image of you blow drying a mouse. Tee hee. Maybe Maizey prefers her dinner properly fluffed. :)

[Nanci]

I learned right here that if you have to use Ivory Soap washing to get a snake to feed, you need to blow dry it, too! I didn't know...But I just thawed the mouse- I couldn't decide if I wanted it to smell like mouse or nothing, so went with mouse. It was very strange, drying it so carefully, fluffing its fur. I'm glad it had its eyes closed.

Nanci

[Nanci]

Maizey just regurged the big mouse...Two days after feeding. First regurge any of my guys have had.

Nanci

[Tula_Montage]

Honestly, I'm very glad for you (and Maizey, of course), but I'm still trying to get over the image of you blow drying a mouse. Tee hee. Maybe Maizey prefers her dinner properly fluffed. :)

I used to have to blowdry jumbo rats for one of my boas.... if it was wet she would have none of it.

Then came Tallulah who had a fear of anything hairy - so when he got too big for fuzzies - I had to cut off the whiskers of hoppers AND shave all the fur off the top of their heads. Thankfully hes not so particular anymore.

[Tula_Montage]

Maizey just regurged the big mouse...Two days after feeding. First regurge any of my guys have had.

Nanci

Oh btw sorry to hear that nanci! It didnt look that big in her either? Maybe it was a bad moose.

[diamondlil]

Poor Maizey, sorry to hear that, Nanci

[Nanci]

I know it was too big. I feel badly for not checking it at the store- I wouldn't have bought it. Now I know. Well, at least she got her whole viv cleaned and got a ton of fluffy new aspen, which she is burrowing around in, looking healthy as a horse. I feel so guilty.

Nanci

[snakemom1961]

WOW Nanci, How big is Maizie anyway? My Tiaga is on small rats and is atleast (I'm guessing because she HATES to be measured 4ft(have no idea the grams)). From the bulge it didn't look to big to me. I know all snakes are different, but could it possibly be something else that had her regurge? Just asking....

[Nanci]

Yeah, the bulge wasn't impressive. But it's the biggest mouse I've ever seen. When I got it out of th bag, I questioned that it was too big. I should have gone with my gut feeling.

Maizey was 42" at last measurement. You should try the serp widget software- they don't have to cooperate very much to get measured. You just need a pic of the snake on a ruler.

[Nanci]

Screen shot of Inez- see the computer tracing down her back? And you can read her measurement up in the upper left corner.

[Nanci]

Try again.

[snakemom1961]

I can't tell from the pic how big she is(dont' hate me) but I know Tiaga was a sub-adult when I got her 3 yrs ago.....and moved up to small rats about 6 months or so ago...was on live large mice then small rats.....finally tried f/t small rats 3 months ago.....ate em like a champ....but I will say the small f/t rats aren't NEAR as big as the live I use to give her.........lol

[BeckyG]

Sorry to hear about the regurge.

Me, I'm quite used to blowdrying rodents. My two ball pythons won't eat anywhere but in their vivs, so I blowdry their rats after thawing them to lessen the chance of any substrate sticking to them. Plus, it also gets them up to the correct warmth pretty efficiently.

[Nanci]

Day Ten and Maizey _finally_ gets to eat! I had a frozen small adult- which I had bought fresh as backup in case she didn't eat the FT giant mouse that she eventually regurged. So I thawed it, and blowdried it. Curiously, it's the first non-white mouse I've gotten. Put her in with it, and she scoffed at it! I checked back in 30 minutes, and she was cruising around the feeding container- the mouse untouched. I picked it up- flopped it down in front of her, and told her she'd better eat. Covered her up, closed the laundry room door. Greg had to hang up clothes, and said "Oh, Maizey's in there eating!" I said, "No, she's in there scorning the mouse." But I went to check anyway, and, an hour after putting her in, it was gone! Yay!

Nanci

[tyflier]

YAYA! Good on ya', Maizey! Now let's just keep our fingers crossed that she keeps it down...

[BeckyG]

Good for Maizey!

You know, I ordered from American Rodent this last time, instead of my usual Big Cheese, and they sent me black and brown mice. None of my snakes has ever had anything but white, so I was worried. I needn't have. They've taken them with no hesitation.

Slightly :-offtopic , I won't be ordering from AR again. Their quality is way down there with Rodent Pro. Nothing was vacuum sealed, and not only that, two of the ziploc bags had holes in them. The mice/rats weren't laid out all nice and neat, but frozen in odd contortions and sometimes tangled around each other. IT's as if they'd stuffed as many into the bag as they could, then froze them. There was an inordinate amount of feces in with them. One bag of rats had feces encrusted into their fur--not just around their anal areas, but halfway up their bodies. Finally, I ordered from them to take advantage of their no shipping charges policy, but I won't be doing that again. When they arrived, there was not one speck of dry ice in the box. Even though it was cold outside that day, some of the rats had started to thaw. Thank goodness I hadn't ordered them in August. Oh, well, it's back to Big Cheese for me...

Sorry for hijacking your thread. I just had to rant a bit about the quality of that order...

Back on topic, I'm glad she ate for you.