Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i thought i had him on the ropes & tried constantly to switch him to f/t. but it was a battle of wills & i finally relented today. he promptly destroyed 2 live rats when offered. i guess the better man won.....dammit!

Hey, but look at how much prettier he is than you are LOL. Glad he ate and is going to be okay. Beautiful animal by the way.

John Cherry
Cherryville Farms

i got one thing going for me, i have a full head of hair but no amount of rogaine is gonna help him. LOL! here's a pic of his bride-to-be from nokturnel tom. they oughta get along fine, she hates f/t too...........:>/

any tactics you can share (unsuccessful ones in this case) for getting him to switch from live to f/t ? My most beautiful la. pine decided a year ago to take only live, which sends me to the pet shop for expensive rats that are likely parasite-loaded. On rare occasions she'll take a f/t immediately after a live one, but she's caught on to that trick.

you know, i tried any & everything i could think of even so far as to offer that big bruiser brained fuzzies! i mean, c'mon!? nothing, nada....he basically just used them as 'bowling toys', pushing them around for awhile then eventually losing interest. i couldn't take it anymore & caved. i put the 1rst rat in very, very gently & left the room & him to his own devices. maybe a minute later, it sounded like an M-80 went off in there & the rest is history. i really hate feeding live but all [and only] my pines insist on it so i guess that's that. i have wondered if toad scented rats would work? i might have to give that a whirl later this spring....best of luck, i know where you're coming from but it's a tough road to hoe!!

Dan.........welcome to the weird world of obstinate, hard-headed, quirky pine snakes. It's interesting that you describe that behavior of bulldozing a dead rodent around until they lose interest. The northern pine male in the attached pic is 8 and 1/2 feet long and weighs about 10 pounds. He will not take a large rat. He will bulldoze them around, and has sometimes began to swallow their heads, but will always spit them out. He always takes a couple of medium f/t rats at a time. That guy has also fasted in the past for 2-3 months at a time. Judging by how well he has grown in 6+ years, I'm not overly concerned.

I have one of my female jani breeders that will only take rat weanlings when I bring her out of brumation in the spring. The rest of the year, she takes medium rats with no hesitation.

I prefer to make my snakes do things "my way", but sometimes you simply have to cater to their whims. I do caution about feeding live rats to your stubborn pines due to the possibility of a bad bite. I would certainly stun or kill the rat first. Good luck with your knuckleheads.......I've got a couple of my own......lol..............Steve G

Would you midn posting a picture of someone holding that snake. It sounds enormous and I would love to see it with some scale.

Thanks in advance.