Posted by:
superdave1781
at Tue Dec 26 08:47:28 2006 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by superdave1781 ]
Hi there, I know how frustrating it can be to have a snake that won't eat! I don't have any dumerils, but I've had that problem with some other snakes and here are a couple of things that have helped mine. First, have you tried different kinds of food? If you have only tried mice, maybe try a gerbil or rat pinkie ,or appropriate size creature. You wouldn't think it would make that much difference, but it did for my rainbow boa! (personally, if I was hungry, I wouldn't refuse turkey just because I wanted chicken, but that's just me!) You also might want to try food of different colors...I've heard of snakes having color preferences. Usually they won't eat white mice or rats, I've even meet someone who's boa wouldn ONLY eat white mice, nothing else. If the mouse had any black on it at all, the snake would ignore it! Lastly, a lot of boas are very shy feeders. What has worked for me is to put the prey in a small plastic container (w/ air holes in the sides and lid) and put the snake in with it, close the container and set it back in the cage. The container should be fairly small, they feel safer in tight places. Usually my shy feeders will eat within half an hour of doing this, but I had one that wouldn't touch it for several hours, then finally ate it. I just thought of something else too. Snakes don't always feed on "live" food. What I mean is that they can be scavengers too, eating meals that they stumble upon that were already dead. Because of this, I have heard of some people having snakes that would only eat something that had been dead for awhile (not rotting, but close to that point). They said they had to thaw out the food, leave it sitting out a couple of hours, then freeze it back...when they were ready to feed, they thawed it again and feed it to their snake, and the snake took it much better. Sorry this reply is so long, but I hope something that I said above will help you, or anyone else who reads this that is having the same problems.
-----
-David
1.0 ball python (Pandora - don't ask)
1.0 argentine boa (Prometheus)
0.1 hogg island boa (Andromeda)
0.0.1 brazilian rainbow boa (Inara)
1.0 kenyan sand boa (Diablo)
1.0 nornal corn snake(Cypress)
0.1 amery. corn snake (Morgan LaFay)
0.0.1 banded cali. kingsnake (Cain)
1.0 tangerine honduran milksnake (Narcissus)
0.0.1 sandfish skink (Slick)
1.0 dog (Luke)
[ Hide Replies ]
|
RE: NEED SOME HELP!!! - superdave1781, Tue Dec 26 08:47:28 2006