Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anyone have issues with Pastels feeding? It seems that every Pastel I have owned or produced, will feed great until they reach the 800-1000 gram mark and then stop feeding for months. Once they resume feeding, it is live mice only.....and this is from solid F/T rat eaters. I have two '07 female pastel het pieds I produced that grew to 800 grams by 6 months old. Both then stopped feeding until about 2-3 months ago and neither want anything to do with rats.? Is it just something with Pastels? Sorry to ramble. It just baffles me.

Thanks in advance
Brandon Osborne
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

LOL your lucky you got to 800 grams mine is at 600 and stopped for the winter is barely eating now. He goes weeks without eating and when he does will only take live mice and only one. I understand the frustration.

>>LOL your lucky you got to 800 grams mine is at 600 and stopped for the winter is barely eating now. He goes weeks without eating and when he does will only take live mice and only one. I understand the frustration.

It's live mice only for all of my pastels except for an older male I have. It was the same issue with him in the past, but he's been fairly consistent for the last couple of years.

Thanks for contributing.

Brandon
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

HI Brandon,.....This could be a double whammy......Het pieds as reported by several others are also notorious bad feeders particularly from pied to het pied production. AKA the best feeding het pieds are from pied to normals. Just what I have heard from a few other big breeders...............LEE

Lee, don't believ it for one minute. I have a few hets pied I produce that are absolute pigs. My female pied hit 1500 grams at about 20 months and now she's at 2200 grams. Her mother (het pied) is over 4000 grams and produced 9 eggs her first year (30 months) and 8 eggs her second year. I love my pieds and they eat like no other. IMHO, Spiders are by far the most hardy Ball morph there is. They eat and eat and eat. My male spider was 1700 grams at 15 months old and WAS NOT PUSHED. It's interesting to hear what other people experience.

Brandon
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

Thats interesting, I only have three males and my pastel is the best feeder of them. The mojave was till a couple of months ago, the spider has never been a real regular eater. I have 0.6 normal 0.2 het albino and 0.1 het pied. Some eat like pigs some don't, some that did, now don't, some that didn't, now do. I thought it was just a ball thing.
CM

>>Thats interesting, I only have three males and my pastel is the best feeder of them. The mojave was till a couple of months ago, the spider has never been a real regular eater. I have 0.6 normal 0.2 het albino and 0.1 het pied. Some eat like pigs some don't, some that did, now don't, some that didn't, now do. I thought it was just a ball thing.
>>CM

And you are probably right. It's probably my imagination and they are just balls being balls. Although, it seems like the Pastel thing has been noted by several people I know.

B
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www.brandonosbornereptiles.com

Pastels -- most of mine are pigs -- got some as babies that wouldn't eat - they became pigs -- they hit their 800 gram wall and went off feed -- one came back on feed fine the other not so much took a while she is a pig again.

Pieds -- male eats like a pig -- female only likes mice but they both feed great.

Spiders -- mine are feeding like spiders are reported to feed -- have a spider I am babysitting that was a mouser with her owners but is pigging out on rats at my house - go figure.

It all seems rather par for the course to me irregardless of whether they are morphs or normals. Perhaps we just pay closer attention to (and stress over) the feeding habits of our morphs -- even if they aren't any different from normals.

Balls -- go figure.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

My pair of pastels is doing that right now. The female is up to 1200g and the male is 650g. They ate rats every time offered at first, even on the first day after being shipped. Now they only take mice.

I thought it was weird, I didnt know it was a common problem.