Hello, about feeding tests, which I highly recomend. And scenting.



There are two important areas to be looked at. One is prey type and its related scent. The other is conditions.



Many people here and that includes the very experienced, omit the range of conditions. Which includes the basics.



Temps without question effect feeding. We all know and understand, if you have good feeding snake and drop the temps, its slows down then stops feeding. What is not so well known is the effects of humidity. Keepers tend to take humidity as a good or not, type of ordeal. In reality, its like temps. As humidity becomes less optimal, it effects behavior and a little at a time. IT slows down feeding and causes individual snakes to become very picky.



THose two areas are key to feeding response. Also, both work to effect prey type and size of prey items. The better the conditions, the wider the prey range and the greater amount of prey can be consumed. (which means, optimum growth and reproduction) These are easy things to test. And to me, fun to test.



Also overall security effects behavior. Snakes left in the open, often are internally stressed out and that effects feeding.(this does require a explination)



All in all, wild snakes, are not picky, they consume a wide range of prey items and without question. The grab, bite, chase anything that looks, acts or smells like food, then determine the details later. Attempt to duplicate that in captivity.



My approach to husbandry has always been to test this area. Not go by what others do as rule, but as a guide, then test the snake, and I mean the individual snake/s. Which is why I question recipe keeping, its fine as a loose guide, but is very limiting as a rule.



Doing the above gives you a whole new view on what these snakes ARE.



THis is opposed to what I often see talked about here, which I call trickery, instead of changing conditions, which is what reptiles do in nature, in nature the snakes seek optimum conditions BEFORE they feed,



Many keepers tend to keep the conditions the same and trick a snake into feeding. Its not that I am against that, It may be necessary at some point.



The point is, Its best to have the snake at full operating conditions, before you resort to trickery(scenting)



Of course this is not a black or white issue. As there are more behaviors envolved. In nature, they do key on a prey source. That is, when toads are in season, they AIM at that prey source. When eggs are available, they AIM at that and when lizards are available in abundance, they concentrate on that.



Wild individuals often have a set routine established. But that is not what we are talking about. In context, we are talking about CH neonates.



Simply put, well hydrated neonates with proper temps normally do not require trickery.



I hope this helps in your testing. To me, the most fun is this, testing. It suppports keeping as fun and exciting and as a learning experience. Best wishes



P.S. I can help you to understand fertility issues if you want. There are very defined reasons for those events.

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