Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know that Dumerils are supposed to be finicky eaters, but...

I have a young dumeril who has not voluntarily eaten in over 10 months--this is *not* an exageration. She is about 14 inches long, and I've tried every suggestion offered by the vet, the breeder, and other hobbyists. This includes live and dead mice and rats (of varying sizes), brained, skinned, in a separate feeding box (or bag), in her enclosure (smaller and larger, with plenty of hides and moss), outside her enclosure, with handling, without handling for several months, higher & lower humidity (and temperature, and light, and many combinations thereof). She will not eat fish, and is too small for quail. The vet could find no signs of parasites (internal or external), or injury. She has been force-fed 3 times, but tube-food only. I was very surprised when I tried to force feed her a pinkie mouse (with directions from the vet and breeder, of course) and she literally shook it out of her throat!

Please send any tricks or suggestions you have, I'm at my wits end!

Put her in a shoe box with a pinkie mouse, leave it over night(do NOT disturb it with noise or motion). check it in the morning, if the pinkie is still there take it out and try it again in a week.

Thank you, but I've already tried that quite a few times to no avail. Any other tips or tricks that have worked for you?

Well, it sounds like you've been patient, but at the same time, how often has the animal been TOTALLY alone for two weeks undisturbed? If it's in your bedroom, living room, high activity rooms, move her somewhere else. If you have to, put her in a closet in a little used room and let her be for a couple weeks undisturbed. Put water in the cage for her in a bowl she CAN NOT tip over. If you can't find quail small enough for her to eat, have you tried scenting with them? I've never been forced to use them, but others say they have and they were the key for them so I'd try it if at all possible. You can buy frozen out of the egg chicks by the way. Also, what is your set up like? I keep all my babies in the .98 cent rubbermaid shoeboxes, nothing bigger, with newspaper and a water bowl...heat provided by heat tape in back of rack. You can use a small piece of heat tape on a 4 dollar rheostat for the same singular cage affect. Also, my dumerils have never eaten pinkie mice....is that what you tried? They're almost taking sm. adult mice as a first meal..ALMOST...I feed sm. mice to them though, which is far from a pinkie. I don't recommend feeding boxes for poor eaters either, why disturb a non-feeder to try to feed them? Never made sense to me...leave them be! Well, good luck to you, let us know how things go in a couple weeks. Take care

Paul

Ah ha! I've not tried the quail scenting. Any suggestions on where I can get one or two rather than in packages of 50? I'll have to see if our farm supply store sells chicks. Any other popular scenting animals for dumerils?

Thank you also for all of the husbandry advice. I did a lot of research before I made the purchase so the rest of her care would be spot on. (Every book, article, and website mentioned they could tricky feeders, I did not realize how tricky!)