Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i bought my first dum boa at a reptile show in pennslyvania, he was having trouble eating and i would by 10 dollars worth of feeding mice a month and i would have to let them back loose in the wild cuz my snake wouldnt eat. sometimes i left the snake with the mouse over night so i would wait another week but nothing, i eventually lost him in the house when changing my uv lighting for the snake, i went and bought another female and she will not eat as well i force fed her twice when i first got her cuz she wouldnt eat. but i chosen not to stress her out anymore. its been about a month since the last time she ate, and in that month i found my 2 month lost snake, she grew and got more fat. i fed her a mouse while dangling it in front of her she got mad and did her thing. i do not want to stress her out but i am worried, she had her first shedding a while back so i dont know whats the problem. i dont know if the mice are too big for her, BUT when i force fed her a live-stunned mouse she swallowed it whole so i dont think thats the problem, advice please.

P.S. need good advice on luring lost snake, i live in nj so its starting to get cold do you think if she ventured out she would come back inside the house in pre-winter/fall?

1. Do not force/assist feed a snake unless you have noticed an obviuos and extreme loss of body condition. It is so stressful for the snake, that unless it is on its way out, it usually does more harm than good.
2. Do not release your mice "into the wild". It is a horrible idea! Domestic mice are in no way "wild"! Return them to a pet store, humanely euthanize them, or keep them in a ten gallon or the like with food and water, so you don't have to keep buying more!
3. If you lost your first snake, you shouldn't have bought another quite so soon. Dumeril's cannot live together, so you will need to house them separatly if you find the other one. There are all sorts of tips on catching an escaped snake, but outside of searching, my recomendation is "wait and see". Snakes will usually surface if you give them sometime, and it would be pretty unlikely for the snake to escape outside unless you leave windows and doors wide open I have a rosy boa that escapes out of anything! He has escaped 4 times: once for 3 months, once for 9 months, once for a week, and once for three weeks. He is only safe in a taped shut critter keeper!
4. Give your snake time to relax! Not all snakes will eat every week, and not all snakes will eat mice. I have a male dumerils who I bought as an adult, who wouldn't eat for 6 months! It turns out he likes baby chicks. That is all he will eat! I never force fed him, or overhandled him. Baby dumerils stress out like you wouldn't believe! Make sure she has the right temperatures, lots of hides, and leave her alone!

Please research this animal in great detail, so you will be able to offer it a comfortable home!
-----
---------
6.15 Normal ball pythons
2.0 Pastel ball pythons
1.0 Plains Garter
0.1 Normal Kenyan Sand Boa
1.1 Anery Kenyan Sand Boa
1.0 Mid-Baja Rosy Boa
0.1 Leucistic Texas Rat
1.2 Dumeril's Boa
-----My list is too long, so I'll stop here!
*Amy*