Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a young snow bull female that I picked up at the Daytona show, and I've had a tough time getting her to eat anything. She is currently in a rack setup, temp is about 84-85 degrees on the warm side, and the ambient temp is roughly 75. I live in Colorado, so the humidity shouldn't be an issue, but it's at 54% right now. And of course, she has access to water. She has aspen shavings to burrow in. I've tried a bunch of tricks to get her to eat, but nothing has worked for me. I've put her in a deli cup, in a paper bag, offered a live pink rat, a live fuzzy mouse, and even brained a pink rat. She's lost a bit of weight, and I've been concerned. I have 4 other bullsnakes (3 of which are in the same rack with the same setups), and 2 San Diego gophers, and each one of them is a bottomless pit. I've never actually heard of a picky Pit (at least, the more common subspecies anyway). I'm hoping one of you guys might have a trick that might help get this girl eating before it's too late. Thanks.

Here are my thoughts....

I personally would try lowering the temps down to maybe 80-82 at the very most. I say this cause pits do not need higher temps like some may keep their kings or milks at. I keep all mine at 78-80-82.

Does your snow bull have a good hide box? If not, that could be a factor?

Is the snake in a really big cage? I brought home a snow southern pine from the 2002 Daytona expo and since she was huge, I put her in something bigger than what I normally would have put her in and didn't think much of it. Because of that, she basically refused to eat and felt " spooked " from all the open space. I put her in a smaller cage and she was fine after that.

Do you feed her in her cage? Sometimes moving a snake to another feeding area can stress them.

I would start though with lowering the temps.

Keep us posted and post back on this!

Take care!

Billy
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Genesis 1:1

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Pat

You didn't mention f/t mouse fuzzies or pinkies as opposed to rats. Sometimes dead is better received than live and mice are better received than rats. Good luck. B

What Billy suggested is really good advice .
I would cool temps down to around 79 or so.

Try this trick . Get a live or F/T pinkie ,I think live works better. Wash it with laundry detergent , the grainy kind . Scrub it really good , then rinse good . Then either put in cage or deli cup together .This trick wonders on all colubrids.

Snakes react from smells , changing the smells of pray works really well .

Keep us post on progress and if these suggestions don't work I have bunch more .

Jason

I'll try lowering the temps. Like I said, she has a substrate of aspen shavings, so to me that's as good as a hide box as she does spend a bit of time burrowed in there. I'm familiar about the cage size thing, and she is currently housed in a plastic shoebox. I thought it was clear that I don't regularly feed live, as I stated that I offered a live pink rat as well as a live fuzzy mouse, hoping those would do the trick. Otherwise, I do feed her and all my other snakes f/t prey items. I also feed her inside the cage as well, so there isn't any moving around to stress her out. I'll try the laundry detergent idea as well, but I'm not sure what kind is a "grainy" kind. Got any brand names?

Yeah, lower the temps for sure and please keep us posted!

In my opinion though, she still needs a hide box. Back when I used aspen in all cages, every snake used their hidebox despite the aspen. To me, a hidebox is just about the most important thing in a cage and to give your snake the security they need to feel like they can be completely hidden. That alone could very much be the problem.

Try this: Get a hidebox, clear out the aspen so you can put the hidebox in the cage with the bottom of the cage exposed completely. That way, no aspen can get stuck to your food item. Then, put your food item there and put the hidebox on top. Get the snake to go into the opening of the hidebox and leave her alone. This way, she may feel secure and may eat inside the place she feels the most secure.

Keep us informed!
Billy
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Genesis 1:1