Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

some mugitus in different colors and patterns I keep and kept in my enclusures.

In general they live one by one in suitable terraria or trays for growing up. Start food for the young ones are defrosted small mice or rat pinkies. P. m. mugitus are not my only Pituophis...
I keep them under the same conditions like northern pines or bullsnakes f.e.. Northern and bulls grow good and regulary under the same treatment. The first winter they don't hibernate, most of them the second winter not, too.

In growing up I observed not only one time: Some animals of mugitus, wich start feeding good and willingly their defrosted mice or rats, made a feeding stop. Several feedings they denie and stop growing. Most of them start feeding again with alife mice or rats, otherwise they hunger til death - I tried it....
Those ones grow slowlier then, because my -not only a few Pituophis- fully eat defrosted. Life mice and rats are always an exeption. Those ones don't come back to "normal" defrosted, when I tried.

Is it a special mugitus problem? Do you know this behavior in your mugitus, too?
Do you have a solution for me?
My other Pituophis feed and grow regulary in same conditions...

Thanks for answers

Bernd

www.pinesnake.de

funny, i was just discussing this same subject w/ someone last week. none of my pines will accept f/t no matter what i've tried or how long they fast, not even after 3 or 4 months in brumation. in direct contrast, my bulls & gophers will readily accept f/t & would probably be afraid of a live rodent having never seen one. it's just a pine thing i guess though i have no idea why. shown below is male s. pine that is patternless anteriorly but patterned after about halfway down. i call him 50/50 but he's 100% against f/t meals! :>/

I've been breeding mugitus for a long time, since the early 90's, both locality patternless and normal blotched. Hatchlings sometimes will not feed until the following spring, with mine this is more true with the patternless form. However, all of my adults are voracious feeders on live or frozen, mice or rats it does not matter to them.

Scott John Reptiles

Hello Scott,

so I ask it in an other way - did your young mugitus hibernate in the first and second year?
Maybe the lack of hibernation causes the feeding problems?

My melanoleucus and sayi always ate and grow further in good winter conditions.

Bernd

www.pinesnake.de

I know that my mugitus feed well on p/k but not sure on f/t. Since I raise my own, it's always p/k. I do have a particular mugitus that will only eat mice even though it's large enough to eat rat pups. I may try this year with some frozen thawed on my patternless and see what happens though. As for the bulls, all they have to do is smell a rodent and it's frenzy time.

Scott Robinson

i have kept 4 mugitis....all have done fine with f/t,with no more variation in appetite any more so than other pines i've kept...can't say i see any common thread between them signifying a difference between them and my other pines,as far as appetiet/feeding/etc...

I have found them to be funnier than other ssps. We've had/have 4 or 5 snakes that would suddenly go off f/t and then begin feeding on live again and then maybe feed on f/t again for another several months before doing it again. All such animals were either mugitus or lodingi. Our amel female Southern that used to do this(don't think she has in the last year) has grown great, but the male has never grown at a normal rate, because a few times when it has done it, I haven't been able to get live for a few weeks. Since it does this, we now keep it at my partner's where he raises our rodents so that it always has access to live, but he's still small for his age. I think there is definitely something to this ssp and finicky eating - as another poster said, I've discussed this with people before, so we must not be the only ones.

P&S Pituophis

I've noticed a difference with FL pines too. I had the same problem. After initially accepting F/T, my FL pine began to reject them. It would only accept small live rats. Eventually I found that it would readily accept frozen chicks (it ate chicken eggs too, but I wouldn't recommend feeding them - salmonela?).

I have had a heck of a time getting my albino southern pine to feed CONSISTENTLY on a regular basis. He is a 2003 male and although he is my most nervous snake, he is also the pickiest eater I have ever had in terms of pits. Due to his inconsistency of eating proper sized food items on a regular basis, he is quite small for his age, 2 1/2 and probably 30 inches or so.

I feed mice to all my pits and have always had great results. This albino southern though has always preferred smaller mice for his meals than other pits of mine that would have accepted the next size up of mouse while being the same size as him. I may try rat pinks very soon to see what results I have with those.

I also have a snow southern pine that now is growing faster after being somewhat picky her first year. She prefers that I wiggle the mouse in front of her with my tongs, then she hits it with complete gusto. If I just place the mouse in her cage, 9 times outta 10 she will push the mouse inside her hidebox, making me think she ate it and then a few days later, the smell fills the room of a decayed mouse. Ha ha I say sarcastilly.

I have thought about getting a normal southern in the future, but after having these two pits be the pickiest ones, I am now looking at that with reservations.

Billy

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Genesis 1:1