Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We got our panther a couple of months ago and he has been doing fairly well. Lately tho he hasn't wanted to hunt down his food. When we first got him we continued to try to feed him what the breeder said he was eating but narrowed it down to three that he would consistently eat: crickets, meal worms and horn worms (most everything else he refused to touch after repeated attempts). He was feeding good, shedding fine, and really seems to be settling into our family.

A few weeks ago he stopped eating the crickets but would still eat the worms. Just out of curiosity I tried feeding him a couple of crickets from tongs (like I do the worms) and he took them immediately - the next feeding I let the crix go in his cage and he ignored them - later in the day I vacuumed them up and he took them again from tongs. Is this normal? Is he just being lazy? Or could something be wrong? Have I just taught him to eat off the tongs and if so is this a big no no?

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Tosha
JET Pythons

They do form habits, and that sounds like what it is. Could be also he prefers the fatty worms and has associated that taste to the tongs. If he is hungry, he will hunt. You could try using a feeding bowl, so that you dont have to vacuum up and un-hunted prey. Perhaps use the tongs to drop the cricket into the cup so that he sees the connection.

But if he is trained to the tongs, use this to your advantage and feed him a larger variety of foods (butterworms, silkworms, roaches, stick insects, etc).
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Sandra
BC Canada