Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have an male albino burm. I bought him as a LITTLE baby in August/September of 2004. That means he is about 5 or 6 moths old. He is 5.5ft (rounded) and ABOUT 4 or 5 pounds. He has a cage that is still way to big for him. 2 CHE and 1 UTH. He has a humidity of 78-82% most of the time. Water to soak in and things to rub on. Is he the right size for his age? Also, he will NOT eat in fron t of me, how do I switch to frozen? There was about 2 months that he only ate twice that month. I was triyng the frozen/thaw thing. He is so perticular. Anything Wrong?

Amanda
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Amanda
1.0.0 Ball Python (Sin)
1.0.0 Albino Burmese Python (Monty)
2.1.0 Green Iguana (Ziggy(rest in peace), Glenn Danzig,Franklin(ADOPTED OUT!), Doris, Taco)
0.0.1 Green Tree Forg (Starsky)
3.10.0 Leo
1.0.0 Blue Tongue Skink (Stubs)
arb@ksu.edu

Hello Amanda.

It sounds like everything is just fine with your burm. If fed properly they generally grow about a foot a month for the first 8 - 10 months. So yes his is a correct size for his age. As far as not eating in front of you, some snakes are finicky like that. It just sounds like that is what he prefers. He only ate twice one month? That's fine. Some snakes go off feed for quite a bit of time, or cut back their food intake. it's normal and nothing to worry about. He will eat his normal meal when he wants. Switching to frozen thawed can be tricky at first. What you can do is take a frozen thawed and a freshly killed rat. Get some of the blood of the freshly killed onto the FT and try dangling it in the cage with a very long pair of forceps. Jerk it around as if it were alive. I do this with my 8 foot albino burm. My forceps are about 18" long and I plan to get even longer ones. Just make sure the FT is thawed all the way through, and you can place it under one of the heat lamps, rotating it every now and then to warm it up before trying to feed him. You can also try taking the FT and poking it in the back of the head with a needle and prying out some of the brain goo and rub it on the head of the rat. Sometimes that will stimulate their feeding senses.

I hope this helps. Good luck.

Circusfan