Reptile & Amphibian Forums

...so there's no question what they're eating later! I hear some people have problems getting their retics to switch to rabbits. My feeling is, get them eating rabbits when they're real young. I think there's less of a chance of them turning them down, they haven't been feeding on only one prey type for a long time, and you still have a while to "trick" them into eating rabbits before it's really an issue. Sure it might cost a bit more, but in the long run, if it saves some headaches, it's worth it for me

~Brian Ott

I'm doing the same thing with my super, she is 4-5ft right now. She just took her first rabbit, it was 1 and 1/4lbs, made a pretty good lump.

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-Steve

I agree. If you can get rabbit pinkies then start your snake with those. I am trying to start my colubrids on them and keep thm on them because they have more in them than a mouse or rat of equal size.
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Justin

Rabbit pinkies are all nutrients too no bone no anything plus they are larger then rats and mice pinks. I feed my coastal Rabbit babies and when i switched them over they shot up like weeds, My female retic should be taking her first rabbit soon.
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Pat
1.1 (100% het albino) Retics
1.1 Coastal Carpet Pythons

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Edited on January 29, 2005 at 09:19:29 by phwyvern.

why do you think it would be easier to switch them at 4 foot instead of 10 foot? its not really that much of a diffrence in age, and either way you are switching food items. I havent switched Jesus over yet, but with the way he eats i dont think there will be any trouble. (besides i have rats conveniently at work!)
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-echo-

I think of it in terms of money. If the retic refuses a meal, I'd rather have it be a $1 rabbit than a $5 rabbit any day. Plus you can throw a .5# rabbit to another large snake without worries. It's just a snack at that size.

I'm sure you've heard of people using their hook or something of the sort to condition their retic into "learning" when it's not feeding time. In my opinion, there is no difference between conditioning your snake with a hook or with a rat. If all the snake sees is rats for the first year of its life, and then one day you throw a rabbit in there, it will be a completely foreign prey item. You are right, you're still switching them, whether it's at 6 months or 12. However, I think there is less of an "imprint" of what they should eat at 6 months than there is at 12.
I might be completely wrong on this, but I've heard far too many "horror" stories of adult retics eating 10 jumbo rats a week to find out...

I have mixed feelings on the whole hook issue as well. Its a good idea in theory, but if you are changeing it's water every day and doing routine matinence then it should be conditioned NOT to expect food anyways. I guess its a good back up, but shouldnt really be nessicery.

again only an opinion, so cool the flames (i can feel them comeing)
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-echo-

But the hook thing is something that you could/should do everytime you change the water as well. Even if I'm not taking them out, I still give them a little rub with the hook, just so we're both on the same wavelength Then I take the water out, fix the light, fix the paper, whatever.

While it is true that I am opening the cage more often than on just feeding day, and I think the snake knows this, you can still see a look of curiousity/anger/hunger when you enter their territory-better safe 100% of the time than sorry 1% of the time... For me, the hook seems to calm any or all of those feelings above-making it safer for both of us in the long run.

No need to flame-just a little bit of friendly conversation-this forum needs it!

~Brian

Always good to switch snakes over young imo anyways, lucky for me my super was already eating rabbits at the time we purchased her, jamp still too small for rabbits, and the male albino wont even eat, just wants to escape from the cage every time you open it, guess he would like to get in with the super lol.

I think there are a thousand other ways to condition or train a large snake.

For instance when I am feeding I handle him very rough, without any care or tenderness with the hook. This is opposed to if I was leting him out for an excersize/handeling session I handle him with tenderness and a soft firm touch. There are a million other things like a certain cologne to spray in the air or a flash of light paired with the obvious feeding stimuli of a prey item.

Secondly: As far as switching them young I would imagine that if you start a 2 month old off on pinky rabbits you will never need to switch him unless you are moving up to pigs or cattle or something. LOL!
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1.0 Ball Python
1.0 Burmese Python

I agree that to be safe, large constrictors must be conditioned to know the difference between feeding time and maintenance/handling/exercise time. All of my retics (with the exception of my Sulawesi who is still fairly young) are exceptionally aggressive when it comes to food. Most get very agitated and active (i.e. hunting mode) within a few days of feeding time. I have even had large retics hit the lexan or glass doors of their cage in a feeding response to movement when hungry. I have had retic's, rocks, and anacondas come across a cage in a second to the "sound" of their door's being opened. If I just casually stuck my hand in there with them I am sure I would have come away with either some very serious bites or possibly worse. To condition them I use a 56 in long wooden dowel to tap/touch their nose very lightly until they turn their heads away, prior to handling or doing enclosure maintenance. They learn this very quickly and even when hungry will back off and relax, dropping out of hunting mode when touched lightly with the dowel. I still, however, never take my eye off of them.
While I do agree that they do learn to recognize the feeding bucket I bring the rabbits and chickens in with, I have also seen ambush feeding behavior wherein a coiled non-responsive retic will hit the glass once your back is turned. This has happened numerous times when no food was present, no food smell was present, and no feeding utensils or buckets were around. I think that to assume a large predator such as a retic recognizes you as a non food item just because you did not bring in a bucket or feeding tongs is a mistake. Retic's take down some very large animals in the wild and I've seen this ambush behavior towards myself from retics who were less then 30 lbs even though my full body (215 lbs) was visible. Always err on the side of caution, even very docile retic's are still predators at heart and even if you are caught off guard just once, you may wind up in a life or death situation.
I also think that tactile or vibration stimulus is the best training tool when it comes to snakes, due to their keen senses in this area. Smells, rough handling, and the like may indeed work, but if a large retic is going to take a swing at me I'd rather be out of strike range and the dowel allows for me to keep a safe distance, have a possible blocker if needed, and allows for safe, gentle training which has worked without exception for me. Also, of late I have been designing my large constrictor enclosures with a shift so that I can safely lock the snake on one side of it's enclosure while I do any cleaning, maintenance, or waterdish filling on the other side. This, in conjunction to the nose taping seems, to me at least, to be the best method for training and working with large constrictors. Oh, and I also agree that you will want to switch your young retic onto rabbits as soon as possible. If it won't switch for you simply skip 2 to 4 weeks of feeding and then leave the small rabbit in with the young retic overnight. This will usually work as the snake should be very hungry at this point and that is usually the best stimulus to get a stubborn young retic to eat. For whatever reason this does not seem to work as well with adults (possibly because they can and will fast for long periods of time and as keepers we tend to cave in).
Best Regards
Shane Provstgaard

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1.1 Mainland retic's
1.0 Yellow head retic
0.1 Super tiger retic
1.1 Super dwarf X Jampea retic's
0.1 Sulawesi Island retic
1.1 Striped African Rock python's
0.1 Merauke scrub python
0.1 Green anaconda
0.1 Yellow anaconda
0.1 Amazon tree boa
0.0.2 Blue tongued skinks
1.0 Ornate Box Turtle
0.0.1 Arizona tiger salamander