Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Having a hard time feeding my 2 sand boas. I believe one is in shed however. He hasn't aten since the 12th, and it was a f/t pinky. And my Anery girl hasn't aten since the 14th, was a f/t pinky also.

But before that she ate a fuzzy, according to the person i bought it frm on the 9th.

I did buy her a live common mouse, because i thought they were tired of the f/t AND that she was hungry.

She did kill the mouse and TRIED to swallow it, she was only able to get the head in, couldn't get pass the shoulders. In a situation like that can i cut up the mouse?

Well i would feed live pinkys but no one around here sells em, so i was wondering if i bought 2 mice or hamsters to mate, since i know they can mate like every 16 days or so, then that should produce enough food for them to eat.

I know this topic probably hs been discussed, i couldn't find it.

Thanks guys!

The easiest thing to do would be to find a source of live pinkies for the short term. The snake obviously will eat mice, it just needs the stimulation of a live pinkie. After a few feedings of live pinks, it will certainly learn to take F/T pinks presented in the same way.

If you are thinking of trying to breed your own, get mice. They breed easier and produce more babies than hamsters. Furthermore, you don't want your snake to get stuck on the smell of hamsters and refuse other food.

The problem with breeding a few mice for one snake has to do with supply and demand. Your snake will want to eat a pinkie or two once a week. Your mice will (eventually) produce a clutch of pinkies every 28 days.

So on day 1 (when the mice are born) you will have tiny pinks, and you can feed the snake a few. On day 7, when it is time to feed again, the pinkies will be large enough that the snake will only be able to eat 1 or 2. On day 14, the pinkies will have grown up to hoppers and be too large for the snake to eat and so you may not be able to feed the snake for another 14 days at least until you get some more small pinks. So you will only have food available half the time.

If you think two females will help....they won't. Females will synchronize their estrus cycles and all produce pinks within a day or two of each other.

One solution to this is to freeze the pinks when they get to the appropriate size, but if your snake is not taking F/T, this doesn't help. Finding some live pinkies for a few feedings is the easy solution to the problem.
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Chris Harrison

Yea makes sense. Actually what i was thinking of doing is gettin a Emerald Tree Boa, gonna do some more research on them first. I suppose they should help the problem that you speak of slightly.

And like you said i could always freeze them and use them when needed.

It def will b a hassle, but will be a money saver in the long run.

I did however find a place that sells pinkies but they don't have any as of yet but i'm in no rush.

I'm gonna look more in dept in this mice thing.

Thanks though.

An emerald tree boa? Yikes. You'll need a good deal of experience with snakes first. Try an Amazon Tree boa before taking on an emerald.
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Mark