Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have had my burrowing python for over a month and he still has not eaten anything. I have tried to feed him small rat pinkies all the way up to small mice. Ive tried both frozen and live. He has no interest in any of it. Can someone please tell me what i can do. I love this snake and would really hate to see him die.

First ,I would try live small chicks or canned salmon ,,,Best of Luck.

Burrowing Pythons are very shy snakes. First off all, check his setup.

1. Make sure it has an adequate amount of shavings to burrow completely under.
2. Then make sure there is a warm end to the cage and a cool end. Heat tape is best for this, but a heat pad with an adjustable rheostat will suffice. Heat lamps and lights are not adequate since the snake will avoid the light.
3. Leave the snake alone for several days. Don't handle it or disturb it in any way.

After a few days of this, offer it a few fuzzy (crawler) mice. Put a handful of the fuzzies in the cage together in a pile at dusk. Make sure the food items are no larger in diameter than the snake's head. Calabaria have relatively rigid skulls and can't readily eat the large food items most snakes can.

If the snake doesn't eat them, sometimes you can get Calabaria to eat by stimulating their constriction response. Gently unwind the snake without picking it up. The more gently you can do this the better. Then take a wiggling fuzzy mouse and gently press it against the snake's body somewhere in the last half of the snake. Most Calabaria will reflexively coil around and constrict the mouse. Then gently close the cage, shut off the lights and leave it alone. If it eats it, try 2-3 fuzzies the next time.

That's what I did here -

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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Also....you will find more people with experience with this species on the Rosy, Rubber and Sandboa forum than the General Snake forum.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

Chrish gave some good tips. However, the sad part is these snakes are NOTORIOUS for not feeding in captivity. They are all wildcaught and are known to generally do poorly in captivity. Hence the fairly cheap price. They like it fairly humid and definitely warm. I would opt for using cypress mulch as bedding, give them a moist hide for sure, and make sure to have a decent sized water bowl and a nice warm spot using heat tape or pad as suggested. Also as Chrish mentioned, they are notoriously shy as well. Because they are so docile, many want to hold them all the time. However, this stresses them big time. Set it up correctly, LEAVE IT COMPLETELY UNDISTURBED for several days, and then offer it live rat pinks. Most begin feeding on live rat pinks over other types of prey. I dont think small live chicks, and especially canned salmon will cut it!!!! I had one several years ago that would eat a handful of frozen thawed fuzzy mice each week and never had feeding issues. This one was the exception. The next pair I got a couple of years ago did not feed, and one had a bad case of mouthrot. This seems to be the norm. You may want to have them vet checked for parasites as well as a precaution. I am not sure, but I believe they are prone to be imported pretty heavily parasitized as well. Best of luck. They are very wonderful and interesting snakes and I personally like them alot. If not so difficult to keep, I would probably have them today. However, I think once you can get them established feeding, they should be fine.