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He always ate perfect for me with no problems but suddenly there is a problem. This is his 2nd week refusing food. Temps are fine at 82-90 24/7 and he just shed on monday night. I think it has to do with his varied feedings this month. He was given 4 thatwed mice 2 weeks ago because i had no rats left then i gave him a large m,edum rat which was way to big and it was live! my mistake...COuld that have anything to do with it? Anyway this week i am trying a frozen smaller medium rat and hes hissing at it....He normally eats it when i just lay it in the cage but now even with coaxing him by moving it in front of him he wont take it? Any suggestions would be great
Thanks,
Jake

Ok well here's an update....he just ate a live mouse which probably means hell eat a live rat...i tried to offer him a frozen thawed rat after the mouse but he craweled away.....I regret ever feeding him that live rat a few weeks ago....Is there anyway i can get him back to frozen or should i just keep going on live STUNNED rats...?
Jake

Use your common sense. Are you going to stun rabbits?Collosal Rats? Whack a rbbit against the wall, and you'll make a nice hole,and probably get bit.
If he's not gonna eat f/t...tough.
Wait him out.Sooner or later he'll eat. Then perhaps take the money you save on live prey, and buy yourself a book on keeping Burms.
I've been doing this snake thing for a number of years, I am 47 years old, and I still refer to my books.
I'm trying to figure out how many live mice a 10 ft could eat.
Wow...I'm glad mine eat f/t prey!
Ok...repeat this...Common sense...common sense.
Repeat it over and over again, until it sinks in.
Dont mean to be so harsh, but every couple of days you seem to have a new feeding crisis.

I dont have a feeding crisis i just ask a lot of question about feediong because im avery curious person lol.....I am not going to buy online feeders so wehether i get frozen or live from my pet store it will always be the same pice but they more readily have live so i buy them....But i will always stun the prey from rats to rabbits.....So your saying i should wait until he takes a frozen rat or should i just give him stunned live and try frozen every other week...thats what someone else told me to do....
Jake

I don't recall how large your snake is, but it seems to me that 4 mice and 2 rats in three or four weeks is about right, live or dead, unless you're lookin' to power feed him. Dead is simply the safest way, for you and your charge, weather you thump em or thaw em.

Thanks for a good solid response! My burm is now 4ft long with a 1 1/2" girth and just ate the stunned live medium rat! Also a not on my bros ball python....He was bought from reptile city and we just fed him today he is 32" long with a 1 1/2" girth. We fed him a small mouse now that he ate we are going to try to give him small rats 1x every 10 days
Jake

I would have no problem killing/stunning a rabbit or big rat...rats are easy...and a pipe works good on rabbits.
you could build yourself a kill chamber also and kill them that way....

Jake, there is no need to worry if your burm hasnt eaten in 2 weeks. They dont HAVE to eat every time food is offered to them. Didnt you ever go a day without your scheduled 3 meals a day? You stated that you fed him 4 mice then a medium or large rat. He may be full still.
As far as whether you HAVE to go to live or stunned now just because you gave him live prey once... no you dont have to use live from now on. Keep him on FT. Give him weeks or months if thats what it takes. Theres no reason he wont take f/t in a few weeks again, just dont throw food in his face for a few weeks. He will be fine.

>>He always ate perfect for me with no problems but suddenly there is a problem. This is his 2nd week refusing food. Temps are fine at 82-90 24/7 and he just shed on monday night. I think it has to do with his varied feedings this month. He was given 4 thatwed mice 2 weeks ago because i had no rats left then i gave him a large m,edum rat which was way to big and it was live! my mistake...COuld that have anything to do with it? Anyway this week i am trying a frozen smaller medium rat and hes hissing at it....He normally eats it when i just lay it in the cage but now even with coaxing him by moving it in front of him he wont take it? Any suggestions would be great
>>Thanks,
>>Jake

Do u have a copy of General Care and Maintenance of Burmese Pythons: Including Notes on Other Large Pythons by Philippe de Vosjoli? Its one of the best books writen about the are of giant constrictors there is alot of good info in this book. The chapter on feeding was very well done. also gives all the steps u should keep in mind when your handling a large snake or feeding one. It is a really well written book. As for the retics I have had several i have 2 now they can not swallow a person there was a record of man in S.E asian getting attacked by one (this was a very large female)and she couldn't swallow past his hips. The other thing was this man was a herder he was working with sheep they found him with his flock the retic most likly thought he was one of the sheep and grabed him. Retics are not like burms there much much more intellagent. They do not normally mistake people for food. Thats a burm trick. I would be very very supirsed if that retic at the zoo u went to is 24 feet. The largest retic i kno of is Fluffy who is owned by bob clark and i'm pretty sure she is alittle bit shy of 24. some one correct me if i'm wrong but i'm pretty sure she is under 24 feet.
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1.1 normal retics
0.1 southern scrub
0.0.1 barneck scrub
1.1 jungle carpet pythons
0.0.1 macklots python

>>He always ate perfect for me with no problems but suddenly there is a problem. This is his 2nd week refusing food. Temps are fine at 82-90 24/7 and he just shed on monday night. I think it has to do with his varied feedings this month. He was given 4 thatwed mice 2 weeks ago because i had no rats left then i gave him a large m,edum rat which was way to big and it was live! my mistake...COuld that have anything to do with it? Anyway this week i am trying a frozen smaller medium rat and hes hissing at it....He normally eats it when i just lay it in the cage but now even with coaxing him by moving it in front of him he wont take it? Any suggestions would be great
>>Thanks,
>>Jake

Jake
Don't be afraid to ask that is how we learn. There are lots of ways to get back ont f/t. The best way I know of is to feed a smaller size stunner and as soon as that one is down and the stretch is over offer a f/t of the same size. Kepp this up every week or so until she takes a f/t with know prob. This should do the trick.
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Chris, my wife Mary
a dog, two cats, two birds, four snakes
oh and three kids