Reptile & Amphibian Forums

4 weeks ago I bought a female greyband and she has yet to have eaten for me. The temperatures are 85 on the hot side 80 on the cool side and 76 at night. She is in a 10 gallon cage.

I have tried the following methods:
*braining
*lizard maker scenting
*texas collard lizard scent
*in a container
*in a container overnight
*washed
*washed then scented with lizard maker and another with collard lizard
*pinky just outside her hide box
*pinky by her water bowl
*bumping the pinky against her mouth
*took her out of the snake room
*moving f/t pinky
*water from a tuna can

Does anyone have any information that could help?

Thanks.

You did not indicate if she was a hatchling or older. Particularly for non-hatchlings, it is not unusual for feeding responses to diminish at this time of year, so that could completely account for what you're experiencing. A cool side of 80F is perhaps a bit warm, especially for a non-feeding snake. If you are able to provide a gradient of 75 cool to 85 warm, that is perfect. Hide areas in both cool and warm areas are useful. How is her behavior? Is she moving around a lot or otherwise seem restless? Beyond that, we might have more thoughts if we know how old she is.

Cheers,

Bob

SierraHerps.com

She is a hatchling, I bought her when she was 2 weeks old. The breeder wasn't sure if she had eaten for him or not. She has a hide on the hot side and the cool side, just re-checked her temps, as of now her hot side is 86 and her cool side is 74. She is active in her cage. She is not pushing against the sides of it, but I don't know if she is looking for food or just wandering about. She has not been handled in 3 weeks to keep her stress down. I noticed this today her skin as a wrinkly leather look to it, but doesn't feel dry. I have seen her drink from her water bowl. Could this be because she is not eating?

Dry skin sounds more like a stuck shed. She needs to be provided with a moist hide. You can do this by using a small deli cup or similar, hole cut in top, fill with moist (but not saturated) sphagnum moss (if not available, then moistened and crumpled paper towels will work). Introduce her to that. Hatchlings are easily dehydrated because of their relatively high surface area to volume ratio. Dehydration not only affects their ability to shed properly, but also diminishes a feeding response. In my view, a 10-gallon tank is overly spacious for a hatchling, but if she starts eating then I would not worry about it. Most breeders will keep hatchlings in plastic shoeboxes for up to a year; feelings of security are enhanced and humidity levels are kept higher than would be the case with a conventional screen-topped terrarium. Good luck!

Bob

SierraHerps.com

Thanks. I'll give her a moist hide. She originally was in a plastic shoebox size container, but I thought that the neighboring corn snake containers may have been stressing her out as well as the adult gray-band so I took her out of the snake room.

Is there still hope that she will voluntarily eat or am I going to need to do an assisted feeding?

After you resolve the dry skin/shed problem and move snake to a smaller container, I would again try the various methods to induce feeding. Not sure about the effectiveness of "Lizard Maker" but if you have access to any Uta/Urosaurus/Cophosaurus/Callisaurus/Holbrookia/Sceloporus or to introduced geckos, you can offer those frozen/thawed or use those as your scenting source after pink washing. Some people will "assist-feed" or force feed; there are various ways to do this, including "tease-feeding," which some will respond to. Some snakes also respond to live vs. dead pinks, especially in a small, restricted space. Finally, other alterna breeders choose to not fight that battle, but cool the snakes down and give them a shorter-than-normal brumation period. Typically, the feeding response is better on the other end. However, this can only be done if the hatchling has sufficient stores of fat.

Last thought, and not to be viewed as a criticism of you at all, but unless you have experience with alterna, I would never buy a non-feeding hatchling. They often are challenging enough to the long-time breeders, and for those inexperienced in dealing with mexicana-group hatchlings it can be very frustrating.

Good luck.

Bob

P.S. Here is a Xmas Mts. hatchling...feeding well!

SierraHerps.com

That is one screamer of a Christmas!

~Tony
-----
You can never have only one snake!

Uta/Urosaurus/Cophosaurus/Callisaurus/Holbrookia/Sceloporus

I'm not all that familiar with geckos. What are the common names of those?

The lizard maker helped me with my other grey-band when he was a hatchling after I ran out of house gecko skin. I think lizard maker is made out of gecko pheromones, but the bottle doesn't say what's in it. Unfortunately I have only been able to locate any other geckos besides leopards.

I knew she would be tough, but sheesh I never thought she would be so repulsed by a pinky that she would curl up as far from the mouse as possible. Even my first grey-band would at least come up to it. I hope that she will eventually be like the other grey-band, he is now a very excited feeder.

One thing though what do grey-band breeders do to get their hatchlings to eat?

Awesome looking alterna by the way.

Thanks for the help.

Have you tried live pinky.
My long-nose snake will only ate live fuzzes. And that took 3 mos to get her to do.