Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My baby male borneo is quite the picky eater and I am getting kind of frustrated! I've had him for about a month, and when I bought him they told me he was eating prekilled, which I don't doubt...I just think I have bad luck. I got him to eat prekilled once, frozen not at all, and aside from that one prekilled he'll only eat live ! Its stressing me out so much feeding him live, I'm scared for him. Anyone have any suggestions?

I have a theory that he might be able to see my hand at the other end of the tongs and this throws him off...he'll seem interested then look at up me and then ignore the mouse. Could that be a possibility?

You are a much bigger heat signature than a frozen-thawed rodent, and that's probably what your STP is picking up on.
So your idea of him looking up at you is actually probably pretty close, except instead of seeing you, the snake sees this big giant warm mass, as opposed to the room-temp lifeless lump dangling at the end of some tongs. Make sense?

Make sure any F/T rodents you offer him are significantly warm - i.e. throw them on a heating pad for ten minutes or so after they're already up to room temperature. Or, right before you offer the rodent to your snake, stick the rodent's head on a light bulb for 15 seconds (one mississippi, two mississippi, etc) and then offer the very warm head to your snake via tongs. Bloods & short-tails have those labial heat-sensing pits for a reason, and it seems that they really need a very warm heat signature to key in on when making the solid transition to F/T.

Give it a go...it might take a try or two (or three...) but I'd bet dollars to doughnuts that your snake will eat F/T.

Also, DO NOT stress yourself excessively out over feeding live - just try to switch to prey that has a much smaller chance of harming your snake. For example, instead of giving him adult mice, give him rats (i.e. rat crawlers) of a similar size that are still too small to do much - if any at all - damage to your snake.

Good luck!

K

>>My baby male borneo is quite the picky eater and I am getting kind of frustrated! I've had him for about a month, and when I bought him they told me he was eating prekilled, which I don't doubt...I just think I have bad luck. I got him to eat prekilled once, frozen not at all, and aside from that one prekilled he'll only eat live ! Its stressing me out so much feeding him live, I'm scared for him. Anyone have any suggestions?
>>
>>I have a theory that he might be able to see my hand at the other end of the tongs and this throws him off...he'll seem interested then look at up me and then ignore the mouse. Could that be a possibility?

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

Kara had some very good suggestions as always, I've kinda been going through the same thing switching to f/t rats. I keep mine in a rubbermaid so I just pop the lid and slide it over a little bit. Then get on the opposing side so the snake is looking away from me at the prey and dangle it. Even then I was having a little trouble... then I threw some chicken broth on there and shabam!! i've created another monster....
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"It's my snake, I trained it, so I'm going to eat it!" - Mad Max, The Road Warrior

I tried the chicken broth with no results . I dipped the f/t mouse in the broth, tried warming it up again, and he was still very uninterested. Is there a special brand you all use?

How often do you try to feed? Sometimes if they see food around all the time its a little difficult cause they dont see much of a need to eat, but if you wait a few weeks to try there more likely to go right for it. There could be some other stressors at work ie. too large of a cage, innacurate temps/humidity. How is your cage set up?

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

I feed him once a week. I have him in a sterilite plastic sweaterbox type thing. The warm side of the cage is around 90 and the cool side is around 85. I try to keep the humidity around 60%.

Should I feed him less often and see if that helps?

You could also try dipping the head in HOT HOT water.

What I do is microwave water (without rat!) for about 5-6 minutes. The water should be steaming when it comes out.

I personally take a still frozen rat, put it in a baggie, put the baggie (with rat) in the hot water, use a long spoon or something to keep it down in the water. When you squeeze the rat (with it still in the baggie) it should feel hot, maybe even to hot to touch, if you CAN'T feel any coldness then take the baggie (with rat) over to the cage, take the rat out and feed it.

By the time you walk over to the cage (or up/down if you have to use stairs) it should have cooled down enough not to burn the snake, but still hot enough to get the snakes attention.

You could also dip the head in the still very hot (should still be steaming, it should only take about 10 minutes in the hot water to completely thaw/heat up the rat) water and offer it to the snake. I got my VERY VERY picky non feeding ball python to eat this way.

Sorry it's so long.

I hope he starts eating for you soon!
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1.1 Ball Python, 0.1 motley amel corn, 1.0 western hognose, 1.0 red blood

My advice would be

Make sure the rodent is nice and warm, feed in a separate container (I use a plant propagator!), drape a pillowcase over the container so that it is private and reasonably dark, be patient (it can take an hour before the snake has a go), don't try and feed during shed- my snake refuses- and they can be in shed for weeks sometimes.