Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi -

Just a quick observation. I have Three Amazon Tree Boas, one large yellow ATB, one yearling Garden phase, and one young orange ATB. For some strange reason, they have all gone off feed, and I'm wondering why. I offer fresh, F/T, and still they refuse to eat. They are alert, active, and appear healthy, no infestations noted. Any suggesions?

Thanks,
Alan
N.J.

Alan,
Are you houseing them all in the same cage? If so you may want to move each one into there own cage. This alone could cause your problem, but here are some other things it could be. First what is your min and max temps in the cage? And what kind of heat greadent do you have? What I mean by heat greadent is that one end of the cage should have a warm end and a cooler end. Also what is your humidty on avarage? And are your animals captive bred or WC. These are some common keeper errors that can make your animals go off feed.

Also, some other things, are there any signs of extrenal parasites? (EG: mites ticks etc), and it may not hurt to take a fecal sample to a vet and get it checked for enturnal parasites. Also, how often and what time are you trying to feed? Amazon tree boas are nucturnal, and naturely hunt and eat at night. I would turn out all the lights and leave them in complet darkness for about 30 mins to a hour, then turn on a really dim red light or black light (not shinning directly in the cage, just so you can see) and offer food very slowly on some long tweezers. Move very, very slowly, and dont "chase" the snake down with the f/t mouse, get close to the snake and move very slowly back with the mouse. You also can try braining the rodent and make a small slit and expose the brains, but this usally works better with picky colubrids. Dont over do it, if they dont eat give them 4-5 days and then retry it, doing it every night will only stress them out. Other facters can take play like shedding and breeding season, (Which I wish mine would go into, dispite my light cycling my breeding pair, they dont want to mate).

If worse comes to worse, buy a live mouse and kill it (a complet post can be done on just that, do it the most humian way possible, people wacking there mice and bragging about it will only hurt this hobby more) then offer it as soon as you kill it the same way I said above. One other way, and many will disagree with this, but if the snake will totaly not eat, you can try puting the mouse into the cage with the snake. I do not like doing it, but for a long time my LTC male ATB would only eat like this. Keep a close eye on it, rodents like to bite when something is trying to kill them for some reason, so its your own risk here, my male is eating pre killed now (working on frozen) but he still has a scar from when he would only eat live.

Force feeding is one other thing, I am not good at it and dont have any experence with it. But only do it as a last resort and the snake is in very poor shape and has gone a few months with out eating. Also keep in mind all snakes will go on fasts, you do not have to worry much if they have only missed a few meals.
Well good luck and feel free to e-mail me if you need more help.
Take care,
Philip
philip171@ethixs.com
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1.1.1 amazon tree boas
0.1.2 normal corn snake
1.0.3 snow corn
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0.0.2 anerythristic corns
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0.0.1 Ball python
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1 gelding horse