Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We have all been reading the forum for the past few days!An we all have seen the damage done to the boa below!I really dont know why the gentleman is getting angry with the remarks being posted back towards him!Maybe he thought he would get a pat on his back!Ok to the point!Snakes wont eat anything but live?HUH!I don't understand that!I raise the biggest part of my boa's food!An I dont understand that part!We have all had picky eaters an we have all tried this trick or that one an with patience!We have succeeded in makeing the switch!Here is a trick that has worked for me!Being that most of my food is live in the beginning wether it using a screw driver an breaking the rats neck or a good old bounce off the floor with a larger rat,Before the rat dies it goes threw nerve spasms right?Well for a boa that will only take live I have found that if the rat is offered at this point while its spasticing out the snake will take it because it dont know that you broke its neck,the boa still see's movement!An little by little one lets the rat die a little bit more before you offer it,Untill finally it will take the prey item completely dead!Sorry I know this is kinda long but dang someone needs to throw some idea's out their for people who seem to not wanna try!Thanks an hope this helps someone!Eric[Hypoboa]
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E&C's Exotic House of Reptiles

i have actually tried this method as well and he would eat it... but i had some problems with the rats bleeding out their nose all over the cage... but even so... he would only eat it if it was moving... i have tried the tongs and he see's the tongs and tastes them and goes to the other side of the cage as if saying get that crap out of here and give me a live one... so then right after that i would throw a live one in and he would his it in seconds...

i do use the method u suggested on most of my other picky eaters and they seem to have no problems with it...

My boa won't take anything from tongs. The trick I do is just lay the thawed rat on the hot side of his tank. The heat carries the scent quicker, and within 5 minutes my boa goes over and eats it. Just lately has he started feeding in a seperate container, and will take the rat as soon as I drop it in. I think a lot of people, when feeding prekilled, want their snake to eat RIGHT NOW, as soon as they offer the food, and then get discouraged when the snake shows fear from the tongs (or show no interest at first in the dead food). Just be patient. Try a passive approach.

Sometimes blood gets in the cage just from my boa eating. A quick wipe down with Quat-Plus and tah-dah! All clean.
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1.0 sinaloan milksnake
1.0 western hognose
1.0 colombian boa

i have never heard of this...

can u tell a little more about it???

thanks

shiloh

Sure. It's a reptile safe cleaner sold at Big Apple Herpetological. I haven't seen it sold anywhere else.

http://www.bigappleherp.com/Reptile_Supplies/Product/Quat_Plus_300000.html

Just a clarification, I use astroturf as substrate. Cleanup up is quick and easy.
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1.0 sinaloan milksnake
1.0 western hognose
1.0 colombian boa

i actually dont put anything down in my cage... i dont know the brand name of my cage but it had a sliding glass front on a slant and the rest is a plaxi... but the back is angled..

anyway... the reason blood is bad in my cage is because the plexi is cream clored and the blood will stain...

of course i could get it out with a household cleaner but that could hurt my snake...

i will buy a bottle and try it out... thanks alot..

shiloh

u gave me an idea... how about a rubber mat for the bottom of the cage??? i dont know of any snakes being sensative to rubber, but now that i think about it i dont know of anyone that has it in a cage...
but if i did that i could just get a piece cut for the bottom and just spray it off with the hose when dirty...

do you for-see any problems with this idea???

shiloh

What do you use for substrate? Do you feed them P/K or live? Just curious.

i dont have 400-500 yet... i have just under 100 reptiles... not all snakes...

i did a large order to cages by design but the cages dident work out so i sent them back and now i am using vision cages...

all of my snakes eat f/t...

all but my red tail, and he ate his first pre-killed 2 days ago

We all make mistakes man, you’re right. And while this is a learning experience for some on here, most who have done a small amount of reading on keeping boas (which is usually done before we keep them) know that leaving live food in unsupervised is bad news. So I think some readers, including myself were frustrated over that.

Per your first post on this below, you didn’t seem to be warning anyone of any danger, not did you seem to own up to anything. Rather, you were simply blaming it on the cat and the power strip, almost as if you had no control over that outcome. That is what had a lot of people upset. While “owning up” to this is not the real concern, LACK OF recognition of such a mistake IS a main concern, and the way you “scapegoated” the incident initially had a lot of people upset because it might just happen again.

I’ve read some of the other posts here and some valid points are made. Providing quality of care before keeping high quantity of animals will be paramount for you. Once you have that many animals, there will be an unimaginable amount of cage cleaning, feeding, etc needed. The fact that you have not been keeping any type of substrate on the bottom of your cages is somewhat concerning as it makes cleanup much more difficult and, unless you clean as fulltime job, makes for a much less sterile environment. Newspaper is best and cheapest. Astroturf, and many other heavier, non-disposable media will prove highly inefficient and difficult to truly disinfect on the large scale collections. You will probably multiply your cleanup efforts by at least a time factor of 2, even while those efforts might not be as effective. I can’t think of anyone I have known with large collections (in the 100s) I’ve met who uses this turf stuff. Most use a disposable media. IMHO, you might want to do that.

I have used the Quat Plus for a long time and I like it. Even in reading the directions for Quat Plus, it gives precautions about getting on eyes, clothing, etc. As such, while it is safer than bleach, you’ll still not want to get the stuff on the animal. And note that in order for it to kill the organisms indicated, IT HAS TO BE USED AS INDICATED ad left to sit for 10 minutes. Also note that any surface treated that will come into direct contact with food MUST BE CLEANED WITH water after treatment with quat, yet another good reason to use newspaper. IOW, you shouldn’t just use quat to spray and wipe any media the boa’s food will come into direct contact with UNLESS you also rinse it thoroughly.

I do agree that this is almost beating a dead horse at this point, but I, and I am sure the others here, DO wish you and your boas the best.

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=743211,743211

i do see your point... i was not trying to deny that it was my fault... i have said in several of the posts that i messed up... although the site deleted several of them...

i was just a little pissed because of what had happened to my snake... and then to top it off i posed what had happened in the room to clear my head and i did not get the replies i had hoped for... i shoudl have worded things a little different...

its just really frustrating to have a snake for such a long time and never had him bit and them to assume something would work out as it did in my haed and it totally backfired and now my snake will have a huge scar...

he wound is getting better... lots of tissue has already regrown... i am lucky that he likes baths so much... i have been bathing him in the sink with the sprayer since he as little...

but this topic is getting a little OLD...

SHILOH

I would have to disagree about the astro turf. I use it in all my cages and i cut 2 pieces per cage. This way i remove the dirty one replace it with the clean one then i soak them over night and clean them off the next day and let them dry. I've used newspaper and its just a huge mess for large collections. I will agree if you have 1 piece of turf per cage then it is a hassle. And actuality i have numerous cages of the same size so those all fit each other but i do cut 2 per cage , to clarify that. Paul