• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Take him back?

Well, I need to get a new camera, mine is broken. I need to buy a scale also, and come to think of it, I really need a rack system where I can control heat better than the uth's. There goes April's pay . :sobstory:
I just spent some time handling him, and he seems to be healthy as far as weight, girth, and response. Maybe I should chill and think about getting him a mouse. :eatsmiley
 
See whats frustrating to me, and why I've been griping so much, is that before I bought him I asked the pet shop, "Does he eat frozen, because I don't want to feed him live." They said, "Yes". I think I its understandable that I'm upset. So I have to ask myself, do I want to keep him even though I spent a lot of money and he was misrepresented to me. I suppose I do, because I like Dante, but that was a hard decision. I'll get a mouse and see if that was his problem all along. I guess I have to do that supervised; mice bite right? I tried to feed him f/t yesterday, should I wait, or just get the mouse?
 
kimbyra said:
See whats frustrating to me, and why I've been griping so much, is that before I bought him I asked the pet shop, "Does he eat frozen, because I don't want to feed him live." They said, "Yes". I think I its understandable that I'm upset. So I have to ask myself, do I want to keep him even though I spent a lot of money and he was misrepresented to me. I suppose I do, because I like Dante, but that was a hard decision. I'll get a mouse and see if that was his problem all along. I guess I have to do that supervised; mice bite right? I tried to feed him f/t yesterday, should I wait, or just get the mouse?
Click to expand...

If you say he's at a healthy weight, then what's the rush? Give him a few weeks at least. I hate to switch a snake to live for fear of acclimating them to that preferred prey type. But you know what? A snake eating f/t from one source may refuse f/t from another source. There may be no misrepresentation involoved. These guys ain't like cats-- who knows what's going through their pea brains when they decide to eat one thing, and not another? :shrugs:
 
Here we go, frothing again. =P

To be honest, I've never met an adult snake that wouldn't take f/t. All of my adult snakes will eat live, pre-killed, f/t. They'll eat rats of the appropriate size, mice, hamsters, gerbils. The only thing they snub their noses at are day old chicks.

Like Dean had said, if you don't want to accept the possibility that feeding live may be a necessity at some point, then maybe snakes aren't for you. And I mean that in the nicest way possible.

I've had to use live several times to get a reluctant feeder to eat. I've used live to spark the feeding in a post egg-laying female who didn't seem interested in f/t. They're a primitive brained animal and who knows when they're going to be turned onto the idea of live food. They're not that domesticated yet to accept whatever we throw at them. But for snakes, I'd say they're pretty darn good.

Feeding live pinks through fuzzies is a breeze for the most part. It's over quicker than you can shake a stick at. Feeding live adults poses potential hazards of biting to the snake, albeit in all the times I've fed live adults, I've never had it happen. But then again, I don't think accidents are on a timescale.

But luckily most snakes can be tricked into thinking its live with a pre-killed mouse and a pair of tongs. Unless you're squeamish about killing mice yourself. :rolleyes:

But like Roy said, I wouldn't worry about feeding live right now. Take a deep breath and relax first. It isn't all that big of a deal to get worked up about.

If you need him weighed and don't have a scale, I'm sure most vet offices would oblige you for free, I know mine locally doesn't mind. Just make sure the weight is in grams, which is what most of us are used to.

Most of my healthy sized males, depending on varying lengths, are 400-600grams. And that's on an every 10-14 day feeding cycle. I would say anything above 300g would be ok, which is the minimum weight at which females need to be to safely breed. And I've had smaller males than that do the breeding.

When its breeding season, they will fast, but I've never had any visibly lose weight and look thin. Most of mine will give it up after a couple of months and go back to regular eating. Some of mine may refuse 4-5 times in a row and then eat once and refuse some more. They're all different.

I think its just common sense on how they should look. Look at your younger ones, nice and round, it should look the same proportionally on adult snakes as well. You don't want the sides sunk in or the spine showing.

Here are some pics of my adult males of varying weights:

Vlad - 605g - 2001:
VladFeb06.jpg


Pepto - 340g - 2001:
Pepto061705A.jpg


Ungeheuer - 350g - 2002:
Unge072605.jpg


Granite - 330g - 2003:
GraniteMar06C.jpg


Cardiń - 185g - 2003: He's a small, short guy..
AmelBloodMar06.jpg
 
Kimberly: My '05 blizzard female is a great grower, and usually a good feeder. She just ended a 16 day fast tonight. She demanded live for months, and I finally got her off them with dry-thawed f/t. So I gave that a shot tonight, and it worked (usually I use the soggy-thaw method). Was I happy that she refused multiple meals in those 16 days? No. Was I worried? Not really. And she has fewer excuses for fasting than your adult male. ;) You're at the obsessive stage. It will pass. :grin01:
 
I forgot to mention that my very-healthy '03 male Upper Keys hasn't eaten in over three weeks. His intended should be shedding any time now. ;)
 
Information to add to the discussion . . . The second year I bred ('03-'04), I brumated my only male and several females for the first time. He was taken off food the fifteenth of November. Had 10 weeks of being in brumation, and flat out refused every meal offered (weekly) out of brumation through the breeding season . . . He went from November 15th to May 13th without eating by his own choice. Interestingly enough he didn't shed during that time either, and ate 2 days after shedding in May. Granted 10 weeks of that time was at low metabolism brumation temperatures, but still, he went 6 months without eating. 3 1/2 were voluntary!

Here he is from December (out of brumation) at a healthy 756 grams:
SN001m.jpg


What's it all mean? I'd guess your male is "hot for teacher" right now, and doesn't want to eat.

D80
 
My boys skip meals all the time, neither has eaten for a month (Treasure has totally snubbed food for 7 weeks now... little brat), Hunter is in blue, Treasure is in "find me a girl" stage LOL. I personally won't worry too much until its been 3 months. Treasure has lost some weight, but hes still around 330g, and Hunter has lost no weight, hes just reached 311g last weigh in =) Big boys hehe.

He'll eat when hes hungry =)
 
I've found that increasing photo-period in my vivs has helped them get hungry. Treasure had a light on his viv during normal daylight hours for a week, and yesterday he gobbled up a mouse =) This is the second time I've had to do this with him and both times its helped =) Not sure if that will help in your case, but might be worth a try =)

Hunter ate too... got a 55 inch skin off him today and SNAP no more mouse hehe. (Hes not 55 inches, just the skin was.. hes 47 inches approximately.)
 
Thanks. I do have a daylight time for him. I'll make sure I keep it on longer just to see. He still has eaten. My boy has got to be over 5 feet long! I'm going to try to feed him again tonight. WIsh me luck. :rolleyes:
 
Will the pet shop where you got him from give you the name of the Women that braught him in?
So you can find out info on him .
Also i have a snake that wont take anything but white Mice i have tried all colors but when he gets to the white one he strikes with no hesitation.

So maybe he has a color prefference
But i would say its the time of yr
My same snake went off food for three months (starting in March) every year since i got him except this yr.
 
I have a lovely big male who has gone off his food the last 2 springs for about 2½ months. I say don't bother offering him any food more often than every 2 weeks like the others said and see how he goes.
 
I wouldn't even worry a bit about an adult male off food. Mine goes off food and won't eat for 3 months at a time at this time of year and rarely loses more than 55 grams. He spends 24/7 cruising the viv so it's not like he's lying around. I would give this guy at least a couple of months and I'd bet you that one day you'll put him in his feeder box, start to drop in the f/t mouse and get your fingers taken off. He's a hefty 644 grams out of brumation and has only eaten one meal since he got out.
 
I have a male who ate twice in seven months a few years back. His upset over a house move ran into the breeding season. He's now at the ripe old age of nineteen and still here to tell the tale, so please don't be so concerned about your fella. You don't need to take him back, feed him live or do anything else exotic. You just need to give him some space.

Honestly, please relax. Snakes can sense stress and if you work yourself into a froth he's going to feel it and it won't help. It really is completely normal for males to go off their food for weeks or months at a time in the early part of the year.

Break the circle and give him some peace. Leave him completely alone for a fortnight and do nothing other than spot clean if needed and change the water regularly. He won't go wild from lack of handling in two weeks and you both need a break!
 
Roy Munson said:
Well, of course. No responsible keeper would let things go that far. All I meant was that if Blutengel/Barbara's 1100g Miami didn't eat for a year, I think he'd survive. :)
Click to expand...

Caught you in the act! :grin01: But you are so true!

:-offtopic Actually my miami boy had'n't eaten for 5 weeks until today; I decided to seduce him with a live 10 day old fuzzie, and he liked it, though he didn't want a second... I just want his metabolism to keep on going. I've been told (or at least that's what I understood) that if he doesn't eat at all, he will slim less than eating regularly but not too often. Snakes have a way of slowing down their metabolism if no meals or very little pass for a longer period. Just like people doing crash diets slow down their metabolism actually...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top