Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thanks for anyone willing to help me with this. I recently bought a jungle carpet python at a herp. show and he is about 4 1/2 ft right now. At first he was eating pretty normally, i fed him 3 full size mice over a period of 2 weeks. However for the last 3 weeks to a month he has not been willing to eat. He spends most of the time curled up in his water bowl or climbing his branches. No noticeable signs of sickness. He has an undercage heat pad and humidity is kept at a good level. We are feeding him live mice. Any advice on the matter is appreciated, I just want to know if I should worry or if I need to make some changes.

He might be getting ready to shed. Did you check for mites? Look in the bottom of his water dish. I f there are "black seasame seeds" there you have mites.

Jeff
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11.11 Ball Python
1.0 Het Piebald Ball Python
0.1 Ball Python Ringer
1.0 Albino Ball Python
4.5.10 Jungle Carpet Python
1.1 Ivory Jungle Carpet Pythons
2.2 Centrilian Carpet Python
1.1 Irian Jaya Carpet Python
1.1.6 Jayapura Green Tree Python
1.1 Kofiau Island Green Tree Pythons
1.1 Columbian Boa
2.2 California Kingsnake
3.2 Cats
0.1 German Shepard
0.0.3 Eastern Painted Turtle
1.0 Mouse "He is our friend NOT FOOD"
0.1 Rat "not sure yet"

No there aren't any black sesame seeds in the water dish or anywhere else that i can see.

It is probably about to shed. Check its eyes and belly for a slightly milky look. Of course it could be something more serious, so use good judgement, but I bet he will shed and resume feeding as per usual.

Also, I would recomend shifting his diet to prekilled or frozen thawed rodents. Jungles are typically very easy to switch as long as you use warm rodents.

Good luck!

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Ben Team
Mark Davis
New Paradigm Herpetoculture
Captive Bred Morelia
404-438-2135
chondro776@yahoo.com

Try a rat.
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1.0 Spotted Python
1.0 IJ Carpet Python and 0.1 Jungle Carpet
0.1 Ball Python
0.1 Macklot's Python
1.0 Variable Kingsnake

Did the seller tell you the snake was on mice? A carpet that size should have no problem with a hopper to a small rat.
As far as the mite concern, mites can be hard to see. Put a paper towel at the bottom of the cage and look real close to see if you can see any mites, they are VERY small.
What’s the temp at? Do you have the under tank heater on one end so you can maintain a heat gradient (warm at one end and cooler at the other allows your snake to self regulate its own temp)? Some times using just a under tank heater doesn’t give you enough heat especially if your tank is open on the top. Closing off the top helps to maintain heat and humidity.
No one seems to listen to this advice (so I will say it again) but it is sooo helpful! Try feeding your snake a small rat. It can be so hard, if not impossible, to switch them later! I have to feed mine 5 to 7 mice at time. It’s time consuming and expensive. It just plane sucks!

Good luck!