Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 9 month old patternless southern pine. Ever since I got him, I have been feeding him fuzzy mice. He started off with one twice a week and worked his way up to easily consuming four per feeding. He is over three feet in length and has a considerable girth. In my experience, I would consider him more than large enough to begin feeding on smaller adult mice, but he refuses to take anything but fuzzy mice. Eight fuzzies a week is reaking havoc on my wallet. Any suggestions on how to get him switched over to larger prey would be greatly appreciated.

I haven't kept any pits but pines, and they do tend to fixate on certain kinds of prey. I had a large male that would only eat small gerbils. Fortunately I had a source close by that had plenty available until I could switch him over to small rats.

My suggestions would be:

1-try to get them feeding on FT rat pinks/pups-I have never found a pine that didn't find them irresistible plus they are more nutritious than mice. Get them over to rats quickly if you can.
2-it sounds like you are "pushing" your snake by the frequent feedings. While it may sound cruel, you can get the stubborn feeders to switch to larger, more affordable prey by extending the periods between feedings and then only offering them what YOU want them to eat. I had a 3' bullsnake last year that would only eat small mice-after almost 4 months of no food, he made the switch to rats and never looked back. He got a little thinner, but not noticeably.

My $.02

Why more pine/bull/other BIG pit breeders didn't start their hatchlings on rat pinks right away. It would seem to eliminate any major problems of switching from mice to rats. Similarly, my undergrad advisor starts his carpet pythons on rat pinks- they rarely have any of the mouse to rat switching problems that have become characteristic of carpets.

Van

it doesn't have to be overnight. Just ease the transition and it will be a lot sooner than you think. Do you breed your own feeder mice, or do you buy live or frozen? Instead of feeding eight fuzzies try feeding four and one or two larger fizzies or small hoppers. Feed the larger food first. Then the next week feed more larger ones and less smaller ones. I a month or so do the same thing with large hoppers and small weaned, and so on. Hope everything works out good.

Thank you for all of your good advice. I think I will start by trying to switch him over to rat pups because they are very close in size to the fuzzies hes been eating. I do buy frozen so a large number of small feeders becomes fairly expensive. The reason I was feeding him twice a week was because I was told that pits, especially juveniles, have a higher metabolism than many snake species. Is this not correct? Should I revert to a single feeding a week. The snake seems very healthy, active, and shows no signs of obesity and is always more than happy to feed twice a week as long as its fuzzies I'm offering. Thanks again for all of your help.

Pines eat like pigs. When I first began with them I discovered that they will eat just about as often as you want to feed them.
My first pine was over 5' long at 20 months. At times, she would cycle a rat in as little as 48 hours.

That having been said, I would NOT recommend feeding them more than once a week. My 4 yr old adult male is over 6' and thrives on 1-2 medium rats roughly every 10 days. While you can feed them more frequently, you will be the proud owner of big pines with abnormally small heads, obese bodies (where you can see the skin between the scales), and probably have fertility issues should you attempt breeding them. Unfortunately, I learned these lessons the hard way.

As far as more info on pit husbandry, you can check the Pituophis Page here at kingsnake.com; I would also recommend acquiring (if you haven't already done so)a copy of John V Rossi's "Snakes of the United States and Canada-Keeping them Healthy in Captivity".

Hope this is useful.