Reptile & Amphibian Forums

looking for hints on getting a young male dumeril to eat. have had almost 2 months now and he has eaten 1 time and that was when he went back to the guys i bought him from because i couldnt get him to eat he ate great for them. i asm starting to think that he just dosent like me or living at my place

any hints would be greatly appreciated

k

.. exactly how you have him set up and how and what you are trying to feed him..

Then we might have some info..
-----
Gus
A. Rentfro
RioBravoReptiles.com

"Quality is not an accident. Perfectly healthy animals are a minimum requirement.. everything else is just salesmanship" gus

ok he is in a 40 gallon critter cage with newspaper as substrate, 2 hide boxes one on cool one on hot side and a water dish. temps. hot 85-88 cool 75ish heat is being supplied by under the tank heater which is on a thermostat he is misted daily. i was told he is taking adult mice weekly and he certainly looks big enough to do so. i have tried putting him in a seperate cage with a f/t mouse and leaving him alone for serveral hours, i have tried leaving the mouse (again f/t) in his cage overnite, have tried newborn rat pups both live and f/t and offered the same way as above. i have even trid dangling the mouse to see if he would grab it no go ( and thats not a method that i would want to use long term anyway cant imagine dangling a food item for a full grown dumeril on a regular basis)he shed last monday and took a f/t mouse from the guys i bought him from
the cage is set up in one of our spare rooms in which we house all our snake/reptiles. right now we are not handling him and the only time we go into the cage is to refill the water bowl or to change the papers dont want to disturb him anymore than necessary until the feeding issue is resolved. hope the extra info helps let me know if you have any addition thoughts on what i could try next or if yoou think anything in my setup needs a bit of changing thanks
k

I had the same problem with my dumerils when I got her. After months of not eating, I decided to try live, watching very closely (although I didn't have to watch for long). She hit that live mouse with a vengence. I fed her live for 5 or 6 feedings and then tried F/T. She took it, no problem. She's been eating F/T ever since. I know alot of people are against feeding live and I only used it as a last resort. I didn't want Delilah to starve herself to death. It paid off bigtime. Take care, Scott.

I just got my Dum about 2.5 weeks ago. I was told she was eating a certain size mouse and I tried it. She would not eat it. She wasn't even interested. I decided I would try a smaller size than what they said and she went nuts on it. Maybe you should try that. I have also tried feeding her in a tub so she wouldn't accidentally ingest her substrate and she would not bite. When I put her back in the cage, she hit within 30 seconds. Just my experiences.....I am not a Dumeril's expert by any means.

You didn't list a live mouse as something you have tried. Some boas freak out when they see a live mouse but do nothing when given a live fuzzy rat.

Good luck!!

Mine would not even look at the fuzzy rat, but it quickly hit the mouse.

Things that work for us are, try aspen bedding. For some reason sometimes this stimulates them to eat. Also I don't know how big you dum is, but if it's just a baby I would take it out of the 40 gallon for awhile. Sometimes all that space scares them into not eating because they don't feel secure even though they have hides. All of our babies stay in shoebox rubbermaids until they are well established, then we gradually move them up in cage size. Some dumerils seem to have a taste for mice and are very hard to get on rats, we have a 4 year old who will only eat mice. It's a pain, but we still love her. So, we tell all of our customers to get them on rats as soon as possible to avoid this type of problem. Also I don't know how often you have been trying to feed him. Sometimes with the constent offering of food, they become timid. If I were you, I would put him in a smaller cage with aspen bedding, leave him alone for 2 weeks in a very low traffic area, give him a nice tight hide box, then try a live mouse. Dumerils can be tricky little guys if they want too. We had someone buy a pair, he took them home, they wouldn't eat for him for months, we took them back, they ate the next week. Go figure....LOL. They just wanted to come home. Anyway, hope this helps some. Good luck

Danni SMILE
-----
Jason & Danni
Our Email
Our Website

SMILE SMILE