I picked up 3 JCP last november. Each form a diff. vender at diff. shows. The ages of the animals are unknown to me. The male is about 3 1/2 feet. I keep him alone in a cage with an ambient temp of 80 and a warm end of 90. He eats every thing I offer. #1 female is 5feet long and takes frozen/ thawed rats most of the time, occasionally refusing. She is housed with another female 5 1/2 foot that has only fed once in 3 months on a fresh killed rat that was actually still twitching. I've offered prey in the same manner as well as live and frozen thawed since with the snake showing interest each time but never feeding. I've left food items in the cage overnight. I've separated the females without any different results. The females are kept At the same temps as the male... 80 with a warm end of of 90. The female that is not feeding is good body wt.. She is active in the cage, especially at night..... where as the feeding female is very inactive, hiding all the time. I am not experienced with this species and would appreciate any coments on the situation......Thanks.
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JCP feeding habits question......
Replies (2)
Several comments:
First, carpets sometimes go off feed in the winter even with ambient temperatures of 80° to 90° which are fine.
Second, I do not recommend housing the two females together as one may be intimidated by the other, more dominant one, and go off feed for that reason. A few days apart may not be enough to reverse that.
Third, do you know for a fact that she was a rat eater before? Many carpets do not like rats. Have you tried a mouse to see if it is simply a food preference issue?
I would separate the two females and keep the non-feeding one in an enclosure when she cannot even see the others. If, after a month she still refuses to eat you might consider a trip to the vet. By then if she is simply in "winter mode" she should have started eating I would think.
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Jim
Thanks for the advice Jim. I'm going to separate them. The "one" problem feeder has taken a fresh killed rat for me . It has refused all else including mice , both alive and dead. We'll see what happens.
Tom (Coach)
