Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have pics of her and don't remember how to post so someone tell me how. I know she use to eat as shes fat. I have a live mouse in her cage now, well its live but its only twitching.
I've kept up her humidity and if she still refuses im going to buy a rubbermaid for her. If any of you have any tips on getting a baby blood to feed, please tell me.

Thanks
Pat

Pat,

How high is the humidity, what is the temperature, what kind of cage is it in now, what kind of substrate, and how long have you had it? Sometimes it takes newbies a little while to become accustom to a new home. The best thing you can do is make the conditions as good as possible and wait for it to get adjusted. Try to stress it as little as possible, ie don't handle too long etc.. You might want to ask the person you bought it from how they kept, if you use similar conditions it might help a little.
As for posting pics Go to the Photo Gallery at the top of the page, go to upload photo's. Then upload your photo, and you can include it by using the select image from gallery at the bottom of your post.
Hope this helps
-J
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

Hey,
Jordan has already given you some good advice on the subject. However, here is my two cents for what it's worth. I would start out by making sure that the cage set up you have the blood in, is secure enough that it feels like this is home and that it doesn't feel like there is no security from the outside world. Hiding places in the form of tup aware or other containers are great and can be made to feel more secure with the added layer of mulch or sphagnum moss, place inside. Cut a hole on the side of the container for easy access to the hide spot. Your temperatures must be kept up and controled too, as well as your humidity, if you are going to keep it healthy. Also, with babies, you can use a layer of red cypress mulch for substrate. They like to bury them selves in it and this can have the added benefit of providing the security they need and like.

Remember too, that they are ambush predators and the more security that they have the better it is for them. They can be quite shy as babies and for this reason it is imperative that the cage or enclosure we supply them, is the best and always up to par. Try handling as little as possible till you get it feeding and on a regular feeding regime. Once it is established it is then ok to start working with handling it. The trick is to stress them as little as possible when aclimating them to their new surrounding. If you are feeding frozen thawed, try presenting food from a pair of 12 inch hemostats or forceps. And always be sure the food is warmed up sufficiently to provide the snake with an warm signal to target (other than your hand). Never present food with your bare hands as they will more than not always pick up a signal from your hand and will make you their target if so. As for feeding live, try using the smallest mouse possible and try leaving it over night.

Sometimes leaving too large a mouse in the cage, will cause a non feeder to become scared and shy and refuse food altogether, for even longer periods than we'd hoped. The smaller the mouse at first, the better, till you get them feeding is always a good idea. A smaller mouse offers very little threat and you might get a better feeding response if you use smaller live feeders in the beginning.

- Angel
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Sometimes on your way to your dream, you get lost and find a better way!

"How high is the humidity, what is the temperature, what kind of cage is it in now, what kind of substrate, and how long have you had it? Sometimes it takes newbies a little while to become accustom to a new home. The best thing you can do is make the conditions as good as possible and wait for it to get adjusted. Try to stress it as little as possible, ie don't handle too long etc.. You might want to ask the person you bought it from how they kept, if you use similar conditions it might help a little."

Shes in a 40 gallon all to her self with mulch. With moss. Ive had her since november 16. I have been using minimun handling as I was told these are a very shy snake and should be handle only when needed. The mice were your average size, and i tried a live one that I hit the side of the cage with, and a fresh killed. She didn't take either, I was using tongs, as they are what i use to feed. She has sixe or seven hiding spots and even more with the moss if she wants to hide in there. Ill post some pictures of her soon. Thank you all for your time.

Pat

Ack are you using a humidifier or anything? If not its probably very difficult to keep the tank humid. Try a smaller rubbermaid for awhile, it certainly cant hurt and there only like 3 or 4 bucks. A tank that big is probably stressing her out a little to much too. What are you using to heat it? Angel had some good suggestions too. Your definately overkilling tho, a small cage with a hot/humid hide and cool hide is plenty. Try scaling down and not trying to feed for a few weeks and see if that helps.
-J
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

Baby blood 40 gallon tank = recipe for unhappy snake. Baby bloods are extremely shy and putting them in a giant enclosure is often the cause of going off feed. She wants to be in a tight little cage where she can feel secure. Since she's in a clear, big, spacious cage with an "open top (which is what the screen top on a 40gal equates to) she basically feels open to attack from all angles from a "predator" of any sort. Remember that young snakes pretty much operate under the mindset that anything bigger is a threat.

Time to make some modifications, which fortunately is easy to do. Get a rubbermaid shoebox w/lid, a smaller version (like the 4636 model) if she's a small baby, or a bigger box (i.e. 2220/3 gallon size) if your snake is bigger. Put 10-15 holes on each "short side" of the box for ventilation, using a soldering iron ($20 @ Radio Shack & a no-brainer to operate) to melt the holes. Keep the setup with in the shoebox VERY simple - just substrate & small water bowl. Try to make sure the water bowl isn't something she can easily flip - those small, heavier ceramic crocks often sold in pet stores work GREAT. Your substrate should be something simple, too - i.e. paper towels or newspaper. Boxes this size are too small to use mulch in since it jacks up the humidity too much, and excessive humidity is a bad thing. Humidity isn't the main thing you need to be worrying about right now. Crumple up a little extra paper for her to hide under, or give her a small hide box at one end of the shoebox. I find that those little opaque plastic plant saucers that you can get at Home Depot make great hides for baby bloods. Get one 4" in diameter & cut a little hole in one side.

Get a little digital indoor/outdoor thermometer from Walmart...I picked up a great one the other day for $10, so they're not expensive. Put the temperature probe inside the shoebox so you can keep an eye on the temps. You do not need to give the animal a basking spot right now - there's cause #2 for baby bloods going off feed - get them too hot & they don't want to eat. But it IS important to keep an eye on temperatures. You want her entire enclosure to run around 82 degrees or so...but don't get too much higher than that!

Set your snake up like this and leave her alone - let her settle in for a good week - 10 days. Give her time to get comfy in her new home & get hungry. At that point offer her a pre-killed mouse, or if you need to leave something in overnight with her, get a crawler rat - the size where the rat's eyes are just open, but it's big enough for the snake to notice and also tend to move and crawl around alot, which will also help attract the snake's attention. If you can't find the right size rat, I don't really recommend leaving a live prey item overnight with your snake, since older rodents have a bigger tendency to start chewing on snakes, or even attack them outright.

Hopefully these simple changes to your snake's enclosure will be all it takes to get her to turn back on to feeding. Good luck with your baby - can't wait to see some pics!

Kara
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"Remember the days of the old schoolyard?" - Cat Stevens

The "2220" reference I made on the second Rubbermaid box is the model #...when I went back & reread that it looked a bit confusing, so just in case, there you go!!!

Good luck!!!

Kara
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"Remember the days of the old schoolyard?" - Cat Stevens

Ok, ill switch her. I got a rubber maid right now all its holding is moss, would it be safe to simply put this rubber maid in the 40 with the lid on it, as i don't have a heater and want her to be as unstressed as possible. I have pictures of her and her cage and they are to big to post so can i have your e-mail address i would like to know if the set up and her size is good, decen't or what needs to be done (my first blood but not python), and her 40 has a big blanket on it to trap humidity and i use paper towels and mulch i don't own a humidifier. Thanks.

Pat

Shes now in a 28 Quart rubbermaid i don't know if this is any better but shes got 3 hide spots, and a water dish and moss and a heater. Other then that shes got nothing. Thanks once again.

Pat

If you mean just put the rubbermaid in the tank so you can utilize the tank heater, thats a pretty good idea. Just poke some holes in the top of the rubbermaid for ventilation. You dont really need to use moss as it will expell too much humidity. Just put some moist paper towels down. You will also probably need a light on top thats on a 12 hour timer. You also need to be monitoring the temp and humidity. Like Kara said you can get a digital therm at wal-mart real cheap. I spend the extra $5 for one with humidity reading as well, it also has a temp guage on the pod and a probe with a temp guage, so you can put the read out in one end and the probe in the other so that you can watch temps of the hot and cold side of the cage. There not the absolute greatest, I know mine is atleast a few degree's off, but there worth the money if your on a budget. Heres a pic, ignore the substrate (just got the animals and thats what the breeder was using) and the readouts cause I just put it in there, the humidity reading went straight to high after about 2 minutes. Also I duck taped it to the side (As you can see she went straight to knock it down!) and poked a little hole so I could poke the light button through the cage incase I couldn't read it.

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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior