Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a S. copperhead that I purchased from gherp.com along with a few other snakes, all of which are doing fine, except for the copperhead. I obtained this snake around the end of December to early January and the snake has still not eating on its own. I've tried both live and pre-killed and F/T mice of all sizes and colors with no success. I've force fed the snake once and tried to get it to eat on its own once again with no success. Does anyone have any ideas that might help get this snake eating again? Thanks!

Copperheads, especially wild-caught ones, can sometimes be tricky to get to feed. Usually, once they start, they're fine. Mine will still go through periods when they'll eat like pigs, then refuse food for months. Try the following:

Offer a wild caught mouse. If you can trap a wild deer mouse or white-footed mouse, this will sometimes get them to feed, especially if the snake is wild caught. I have a tiger rattler that would not feed, tried everything, but it took a wild deer mouse. It would only eat deer mice for a year, then switched to frozen/thawed domestic mice not problem. Now it never misses a meal.

Check your temperatures. I keep a basking light on one end of my copperhead enclosure with about 80-85 degrees, and cooler on the other end of the cage.

Provide UV light. I have a broad-banded copperhead that didn't eat for over a year. I put a Reptisun fluorescent UV light over the cage, and the snake ate within a half hour.

Good luck.

Thanks for the tips they are greatly appreciated!

Copperheads can go off feed from time to time. Here are a few things you might try. Have a good hide for the snake, Coppers don`t like an audience. As far as lights go, my experience is they don`t really like bright light, if I use any at all I use a red colored bulb. They don`t like intense heat either, I keep my herp room at 78 to 82 degrees. Try braining the mouse, or what I do is crush the skull and nose with hemostats, just enough to get some blood, fluid to come out of the nose, they sometimes respond to the scent. Try scenting the mouse with chicken broth, fish, possibly a green tree frog. Coppers have a very varied diet in the wild. Also, don`t force feed unless it is an absolute last resort, it stresses the animal greatly. Also, you may have to treat for parasites, I will give you an example. Back in Oct. of last year, I bought several captive bred Coppers from a well known breeder in SC. When I brought them out of brumation, all ate except one male. I tried for 2 months, no dice. He started getting a triangular shape, loss of body mass, so I thought he must be parasitic. I tubed him with Panacur and Flagyl 3 weeks in a row. He has now fed 2 out of the last 3 weeks, the other week he was in shed. He has shown a drastic improvement. I don`t know your experience level, you may need and I would reccomend help with the tubing. Go to www.snakegetters.com and navigate the site, you will find most all the info you need. You can get the meds and tubing equipment at www.beanfarm.com. I have all 5 subspecies of Copperheads, they are wonderful animals. Best of luck.

Vampire

My 1.1 broadbands at home look very much like that one, but not so much orange. I have a feeling I know who you got yours from, the same person I did, and Im jealous that you got more orange on yours. Anyway......
I've told this story a few times.
To get mine started out I ended up leaving a pinky in the tank for over a day. After a day or so it started to stink, but the copperhead seemed to like this, and finally ate it. I ended up feeding fresh frozen pinkies, and the snake would not eat them until at least 2 days had gone by. This went on for about 6 months and it eventually started to take them as soon as they were offered. Braining helped too, I just used an Exacto knife to slit the head.
Good luck!
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"

The pic is a pictigaster, not a laticinctus...yes?

NP

What distinguishing characteristics are there about the Pictigaster that make it NOT a laticinctus? I swear dude, other than a slightly deeper orange color, mine at home look exactly the same.
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Tom

"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"