Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all, I am pretty sure this is normal but just wanted to check and ask a question. This is a 5 year old male hogg island boa and he has refused food for a month now. His temps are 92 on hottest spot in 4x2 cage, 78 at the absolute coolest. At night this drops to 89-90 and 76-77.

He ate without fail all last winter which was the first year I had him. But the background temp was a bit higher, low 80s.

Questions are, assuming this is normal behavior: should I continue to offer food every couple of weeks and continue throwing rats away or not bother? Also should I cool him off to simulate real winter temps for him?

Thank you very much,
Carole

PS I have no female and no plans for breeding presently.

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www.reptilecare.com

I've had males do this. Each time I have found this little trick to work to get them to take a meal.
(My boas are all fed f/t rats).

Get a live mouse, nothing bigger, so it can't hurt your snake. Have a thawed rat at your side, the size of a normal prey item. As he swallows the mouse, introduce the nose of the rat and he will keep eating.

I do this once a month until they are back on their normal schedule. Usually late January to early February.

Personally, I just don't see a need for any feeding tricks. As long as your snake's not losing a substantial amount of weight, it's perfectly normal for a snake to go off feed during the winter. When mine take themselves off feed, I continue to offer food every other week. I've been fine refreezing a rat once- so I get 2 tries out of each rat. If it's not eaten after the 2nd thaw, I toss it.
Overall, though, I trust my animals to know what they need, as long as it's not endangering their health with an unhealthy weight loss.
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Robins Critters
1.0 Corn snake Jack Skellington
1.1 Hog Island Boas Harley & Isaboa
0.1 Albino Sonoran Gopher Snake Jasmine
0.1 Western Hognose Addy the Adder
1.0 Tricolor Hognose Yoshi
1.3 Leopard Geckos Yoda, Geo, Tang, Ginger
1.2 Crested Geckos Fox Mulder, Peek & Boo
1.0 Blue Tongue Skink Indigo
1.1 Eastern Box Turtles Squirtle II & Yurtle II
0.1 Pacman Frog Buffy the Cricket Slayer
0.0.1 Sulawesi Red Toad Mr. Toad
0.2 Tiger Salamanders Tiger & Sally
1.1.1 Firebelly Newts Wayne Newton, Olivia Newton John & Thandie Newton
1.1 Cats Gus & Mena