Reptile & Amphibian Forums

my anaconda wont eat, i've tried offering it a small rat to a mouse to even a gerbal and goes n smells it for a second then just curls up in the other side of the cage n doesn't even seem like he has any interest in it he's only about 3 feet long right now but has me starting to get worried because he seems like he's lost some weight and is getting alot skinnier since i've noticed the problem

greens will not take a mammal as there first meals. they need to be started on chicks then switched to rats. think gavin still has not switched his green to rodents yet? he will give better advice on this my green will only take rodent but they have to be dead first.

CrazyCody

well when i firt got him i offered a large mouse and it took him like an hour or so but he did eventually eat it but then wont eat since

Cody is very right and I am sure people were expecting me to respond to this post. I feel qualified lol. I would say that the eeding on a mouse was a fluke. Does not happen regularly with young greens. I have some occasions where my green will take a scented rodent and then refuse. She actually was refusing ft chicks for a while after the first one she ate. They have a metabolism where they can be picky so you have plenty of time to figure out what they like and how you can get them to what you want. Mine actually took garter snakes as her first few meals. I do not recomend this and I am sure young iguanas would be taken as well. I would deffinitely try ft or live chicks and I am sure your green will not refuse. Do this for a few feeding and then start trying to make the switch by offering scented or maybe you will be lucky and not have to go through the long work and he will just switch without trouble. But most need to grow a little before they take rodents. I had to actually make the switch from snakes to chicks by feeding grocery store chicken parts cut in appropriate sizes. Then i tied ft rodents to the ft chicks and that worked well as long as you tie it tight. You could try scneting rodents with chicken broth or wrapping in chicken skin but this never worked for me. Rubbing a ft chick all over a large mouse or small rat works most of the time for me now. And yes, i am still in the process of making the switch to unscented food. Good luck and let me know what works out. Also, I started documenting the circumstances in which she took food (ex. by hand, left in cage, teasing, tongs, lights on/off, in water, in hide..you get the point) i found grocery store chicken was taken easily in many ways but held still by bare hand with lights off in shallow water worked best. low light with teasing by hand in shallow water worked best for ft chicks and scented rodents. just what worked for me...let me know how your snake behaves.

Yeah, sometimes you gotta' keep tyring. When I got my Anaconda, it hadn't eaten in six weeks when I bought it. After I got it, it took me three weeks to get her to eat. She did the exact same thing as yours is doing, smelling the food then leaving. My solution to this problem was persistence. I just kept putting the food in front of its face, and it eventually took the food. I would also like to note that my snake does this EVERY time I feed it, but when I get it to eat, it's a very good eater.

I've had him for 5 weeks n he ate the 5th day i had him but he hasn't eattin in 4 weeks so far, imma try to get a chick to try today but i donno

Here is a picture of him

heres another