Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have 2.2 Indigos that are CB02 animals. In early 2004 I moved them to larger cages. After this move, one of the females became pickier in her eating, and is now noticably smaller than the other animals. I moved her back into the cage she previously had been in, just to see if that would get her going again. She took a single rat pup last weekend, but doesn't seem to be interested in food again this weekend. Overall, I've noticed that all of my Indigos have slowed down on their food intake since late fall, and I attributed it to the light-cycle changes in the room. This one female has me worried though since her food intake seems below normal to me. Any ideas would be appreciated.

here are a couple of things i would suggest checking on:

1. Make sure that the snakes environment is humid enough. This time of year the humidity in the air goes way down. Cold weather mixed with heating a house just sucks the life right out of the air. I use a humidity gage along with cypress mulch as a substrate and some moss in the hidebox and actually have to mist once or twice a day (very heavily) to keep the environment and air above desert levels.

2. check the temperature levels. If the snake is getting a little colder this time of year then i think that she will have a response with her metabolism slowing down. I believe you may have a similar response if the environment becomes warmer also, as a result of household heating being increased.

keep the air moist and outdoors like as much as possible.

good luck. Beyond that i am sure that there are specific problems and things that happen (especially with female egg producing snakes)that many others on this forum would know much more about but the environment would be my first cause for concern.

John

I don't disagree with the above. These are things that need to be checked.

I also have learned from the sage advice of those on this forum that different food options are also an option.

From a number of folks: Try chicken. Drumettes or the large part of the wing.

From OH (worked for a reluctant Y/T) Trout. Most Cribos like fish. Makes for messy cages but at least they are eating.

Dannio says chain chain chain. Tie the food they will take to the food they won't. Gets it down.

Good luck!
J.

the term chain, chain, chain referred to assist feeding neonate drys by hand not w/ thread. i never really cared for that idea and have never done that. it was also a big hit for aretha franklin in the early sixties, i'd give it a 10, easy to dance to. :>]......as far as the fasting indigo is concerned, i'd just keep an eye on her weight and occasionally offer her smaller treats till she snaps out of it, which she will. if she starts losing noticeable weight however, that's a different story. for example, i have a bullsnake that just broke his fast 2 days ago. his last meal was on 7/3. he simply stopped eating for no apparent reason but barely lost any weight. most of my drys are feeding light these days too. but it's 2*, a blizzard is howling outside and although the room is warm, they know it's winter and are acting accordingly. that's fine w/ me, less work. keep us posted and good luck! and speaking of luck, to any atlanta falcon fans out there, it's 2* here [philly] and a blizzard is howling. ouch!!!

.

It is winter and perhaps that individual snake, in her new cage was more exposed to winter cues and won't eat until it's got solid spring time cues.

A possibility: I've had a snake that was born here, put on good body weight greedily accepting thawed pinks. It got shipped out to a new owner as part of a pair and was so traumatized by shipping it never got back into a good feeding mode and withered away refusing meal after meal. It's mate arrived in the same box and began chowing down like nothing was wrong.

So on occasion I think that individual indigos can get "shocked" by too much change and don't seem to recover. I really hope this isn't what's going on there.

You might consider increasing her light exposure and daytime hours... even a little extra heat might be in order.

Good luck Paul.

Doug T

"So on occasion I think that individual indigos can get "shocked" by too much change and don't seem to recover. I really hope this isn't what's going on there."

i think doug has a great point here. a tad bit of stress (cage change) might amplify the winter tendency to go off feed.

a similar thing happened to my pair. they would hit the food before it touched the floor of the cage, then i transferred them to new and bigger cages (in october). they both became far less enthusiastic about food, to the point of refusing meals every once in a while. they are just now starting to get back to eager eating. i also increased the heat in their cages by turning off the exhaust fans in their cages (mainly to increase humidity, but also increase heat).

good luck, but i don't think you're in trouble yet.

matt

In addition to what's been said about humidity, temp, etc. I'd offer a yearling size corn snake (preferably a candy cane zigzag blood-red) or corn snake/rough green snake scented f/t rodent. I believe corn snakes and rough greens are favorites of reluctant indigos and kingsnakes.

Funny you should mention that, all 3 of my snakes have been reluctant feeders lately too. Tonight, I thawed out a dekays snake that had been in the freezer for about 2 years and offered it to my 04 male and he ate it!

And BTW, that dekays snake was a real monster, over 17" long!

Eric
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If Jesus is your co-pilot, you'd better change seats!

np

I do have one pic I took of the dekays snake before I fed it unfortunately I didn't get any pics of Solomon eating it. I got side tracked and by the time I got back in the room, it was all gone!

It wasn't a particularly big meal for him but, at 17" it was by far the largest midland brown snake I have ever seen!
Eric

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If Jesus is your co-pilot, you'd better change seats!

I've read through all the advice that was given to you regarding your Indigo slowing down on her eating. I can say that there are a lot of smart folks on this forum. I wish I had some of you to help me years ago as I learned the hard way most of the time.
The advice you recieved was great and the only thing I might add is to lengthen the light cycle for that snake as well as keeping it warmer and increasing the humidity. Also decrease the size of the food item until it starts to pick up. Have you checked it out for parasites? You may want to ask a Vet about giving it something like panacur or flaygl. But don't expect it to start chowing down til spring, even if it eats, it won't eat much til then.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Chuck