Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I've been meaning to share this for awhile and it just crossed my mind. My adult male Southern Copperhead is about 3 feet and hasn't eaten since April of '03. Ten whole months. And he hasn't lost any weight whatsoever and sometimes he even looks heavier to me. Kinda weird having an animal that you don't even have to feed. Has anyone else ever seen this? It would bother me if he wasn't completely healthy, active, beautiful. But he's still the best looking copperhead I've seen in my life. I'll post some pics soon cause I love showing him off but have the worst time getting good pics.

Are you sure it's a he and not a gravid she?

Actually I thought it was a female for like a year and a half and I've been searching for a male that is as nice as (she) was. I bought 2 males on a whim that were nice but still not up to par. I had them together because it was so obvious that she wanted to breed. When I put them together though, he was the one doing all the copulation behavior. Being the aggressive one. Alot of experienced breeders have told me that only males are the aggressors and if you have multiple males together they will try to copulate. So now I consider him a him. I have since gotten rid of the other 2 and just always looking for exceptional males or females. It was in September though that the copulation was going on so I guess I'll see in a couple months if he has babies. Haha. Not only would it be great to have babies with his bloodline but more importantly, I'd finally know what he really is to look for a more appropriate mate. I love having baby coppers. I had baby northerns 2 years ago and it was one of the best experiences I've had with snake keeping.

See my post from a month or 2 ago. I had a copperhead that didn't eat in over a year, tried everything. I put an 18" Lumichrome tube over the cage for UV light and he started eating within a week, hasn't missed a meal since. It's worth a try.

I woulnd't be TOO concerned. I once had an adult green tree go for about 14 months without eating, and then just started up again. Talk about being worried!! lol. Anyway, if you havent tried alternate food items or feeding approaches, there are quite a few different ones to try. If you were to do a "feeding method" search or something to that effect you should turn up some great ideas. There are just so many different ones I couldnt even begin st scratch the surface in one post. But you may want to try the chicken broth on the mouse or rat feeder head method.