Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a very large male IJ that won't touch a rat, no matter what trick or tricks I try. I have to feed him bunches of f/t mice at a clip, and I'm thinking about trying a one-pound chicken, or maybe a cornish game hen.

Anyone else do this? Any comments?

Thanks!

Bill

i have never fed fowl to my carpets or my burm i was wondering if you have let ur jcp starve for a little bit like a month or more because hunger will get to it and they usually eat or you have a really picky carpet
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1.1 Morelia Spilota Cheyni - Jungle Carpet Pythons
1.0 Albino Burmese Python

I have a JCP that won't take rats either. I have fed chicks, ten at time but never anything larger than that. There are two real problems with feeding fowl. First, they get hooked, it is pretty common for them to not take another rodent again. I learned this the hard way. I know some guys from Austrailia who say that once a carpet gets into a chicken coop, they will never go away, a lot of them are actually killed because of this. The other is fowl have hollow bones. Some people believe that they are more dangerous to feed to a snake. The bones are much more likely to break and puncture something vital. There's a picture that was going around a couple years ago of a Scrub with a chicken bone sticking out of it. It healed with no real problems but I guess the threat is still there. I stopped feeding fowl personally, they stink, they're loud, and they're harder to kill than rodents. My JCP is just at 8ft and 4 years old, she takes about twenty mice every ten days to two weeks. I've given up on trying anything else, I just kill them all and she eats them like a dog out of a bowl. Good luck, Eric-

Hi!

My JCPs won't touch rats either. I feed mine hamsters. Might work for you too.

Sietse

I had a Ball that refused rodents once, I got some Gerbils and he went for it. I say try something else rodent wise then you could always resort to fowl. You good take a big raw chicken thigh and rub it on the rat kinda nasty but it could work. I feed my Burm chicken but I offset them with Jumbo rats now and then. The important thing is really the whole animal not just pieces.
My2Cents
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"I am become death, the destroyer of worlds" July 16, 1945 Robert Oppenheimer

I have feed chicks and quail. I have a 6 year old IJ male that I have also tried every trick known to switch from mice to rats. Will not eat a rat. The best attempt I had he constricted the rat but would not eat it. I gave up after 3 years. I feed him mice now that I can get them cheap. But when I was unable to get a cheap supply I bought quail and large chicks or small chickens. I had no problems with it. And there really is no problem with getting them hooked since they don't eat rats anyway. The only problem would be if you can no longer get fowl and they decide not to take mice. Mine never turn down mice.

I used to feed my large burmese adult chickens. I didn't have a cheap rabbit supplier and rats cost way too much to feed him 7-10 at a time. Chickens were cheap and worked fine. The feces is not the funniest thing to clean up.

I am not advising you by any means. Just telling you my situation that worked well.

Matt

What about trying to combine rat pups with the mice?

I’m assuming you are feeding thawed frozen mice, try thawing a rat with the mice (don’t feed the rat the first time) and feed him the mice to get him use to the smell. It worked for me with my IJ and my JCP. I hope it works for you!

I have tried the "gradual mixing" method (letting rats/mice thaw together, then feeding only the mice, eventually the rat). My adult female JCP just simply won't eat rats, no matter what. Once when she was really hungry, she struck and constricted a rat, but let it go once she got a good smell of it. Like Eric said earlier in this thread, I have just accepted it and feed her about 15 mice every week or so (just put them in a dog bowl/dish, she takes them one at a time).

Ya, some snakes just can’t be fooled, but it’s always worth a try. My Ball is like that, but that’s to be expected.

I have often wondered if small and frequent meals are maybe the natural norm for JCPs in the wild. Does anyone know “specifically” what they eat in the wild? I am very interested in finding out. Most of what I have read has been very vague or nonspecific to JCPs. This is just wild speculation, but maybe, for convenience sake, we are trying to feed something that is not natural? Assuming this to be true (for argument sake) I’m not saying bigger items aren’t good for them, just instinctually not natural.

I would love to find someone who has observed them in the wild!

-Food for thought.