Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a two year old splendida that has not eaten in about 6 weeks. He still looks and acts fine, active, inquisitive, etc, just not showing any interest in food. This snake has always been a problematic feeder since it was a hatchling, unlike my other 10 various Kings and rat snakes, this king will often skip a feeding or two, but has never gone this long without feeding. My question is how long before I should consider this a serious problem and consult my veterinarian?

It could be a sign of fall approaching and now that the snake is mature, it may be looking to shut down for the upcoming winter months. Or, it could be a male looking for last minute late summer love since it is now mature enough to spread its genetic potential!! It never hurts to have a vet check done. Have them run a fecal at a minimum and see if it is harboring parasites. You can also try using some of the probiotics on the market now to see if that improves feeding response. Are there any significant changes going on with the weather where you live? If the days are getting noticeably shorter and night temps are dropping more than usual, it could be getting ready for the big sleep!!

My snake room is a constant temperature year round, with heat tape in their tubs to provide a temperature gradient, lighting is all artificial since no windows are present in the room. Unless he has an innate sense to tell the season independent of lighting and temperature. Thanks for the reply.

I apologize for my rather vaque reply to your original post. As far as how long, thats a matter of the physical condition of the animal. If it is showing signs of obvious mass loss, then you have a problem that should be addressed NOW!!! If it is a brumation/season related condition, then it could go one for several more months and without proper temps to keep the snake cool and not burn reserves, it could eventually kill the animal. If you are pretty sure based on the temps, etc. its not brumation/husbandry related as you stated, then six weeks is a bit long IMO. If the snake is/has obviously been loosing weight, get it vet checked as soon as possible. A trick you can try is to offer a smaller than usual meal. I have a juvie pyro that went off feed for a couple of weeks with no obvious reason. She was taking fuzzys, but I offered her a pinky after she skipped a couple of meals and she took it. I kept her on pinkys for a few more meals then upped it back to fuzzys. So far so good.

You must be good luck Kevin, I have done the smaller prey trick with this snake before but I just went even smaller and offered him a very small fuzzy. Bam, he nailed it. Thanks again!

Cool!! Actually the pyro I did this for was the male, not the female. I seem to have that problem with males more than females, and usually feed the males smaller prey for some reason in some cases.

One of my 08 pyros is a small but healthy guy who refuses to eat anything any bigger than very small fuzzies. If I offer him him anything any bigger he goes "WTF? You expect me to eat that great big thing?" but will readily eat something smaller. All my snakes prefer multiple smaller items to one or two big items.

A really old photo of my little Zane. Guess I should update the photo album!
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Bob/Chris
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire

All my snakes prefer multiple smaller items to one or two big items.

Same here, gets a little more expensive, but takes a LOT of stress out of feeding days.
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Chris - TX

2.2 Splendida
1.1 Nigrita
1.1 Ruthveni
0.0.3 277 Alterna

The cost of feeding multiple small over a few large is possible by either raising ones' own rodents ,which I do, or buying them in huge shipments to offset the shipping cost, something I have not done but is a viable option. I sell my surplus mice to cover the expense of raising them.
It is a small luxury to have live plump pinks and fuzzies on hand for those reluctant eaters!
I like my mice; if I didn't like them what a deleterious chore keeping them would be. also I live way out in the boonies so my mouse operation is not going to bother anybody.
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Bob/Chris
Pyromaniac AKA Greatballzofire