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Saharan hasn't eaten in 3 months

tkeane89 Oct 05, 2009 12:10 PM

Greetings everyone! I just got a job at Petco 3 months ago and since then our Saharan Sand Boa hasn't eaten a single thing. He soaks in his water dish and basks under a light as usual but he shows no interest in eating at all. We've tried thawed mice and live mice. I'm not the caretaker of the snake so I'm not sure if we've tried pinkies or anoles yet. I do know that we've taken the snake to the vet multiple times only to come back with a clean bill of health. Any ideas as to what might be causing the fast? The environment he is in is exact to the very detail that Saharans should be in. Just to be sure, the vet gave the snake antibiotics for intestinal parasites. The treatment is done and at the moment the snake is housed in our constantly monitored wellness room where our sick and injured animals are placed.

There are some things I don't know about the snake, I don't know the age or sex of the snake. I am 100% positive the snake is a Saharan Sand Boa and not a Kenyan or some other Sand Boa.

Any help would be tremendously appreciated! Thanks!

Replies (5)

CBH Oct 05, 2009 12:42 PM

Interesting... I keep a small group of saharans and have never seen them soak. Is it male or female? Adult? What are the temps like?

-Chris
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Christopher E. Smith
Contact
Captive Bred Herps

SandBoaMorphs Oct 05, 2009 03:33 PM

Mites or ticks are the number one sign of excessive soaking, isn't it? Especially for a snake that isn't known for such behavior....but you've been to the vet.

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Mark Huntley
Sand Boa Morphs
2.1 Rufescens SB
1.1 Albinos SB
0.1 Dodoma SB
0.1 Normal (yellow) SB
1.0 Anery SB
0.1 Snow SB
3.2 Boston Terriers
0.2 Sooners
8.30 Rhode Island Reds
X.X Tropical Fish
0.1 Moody Wives
1.1 On the fence in-laws
2.1 Rug Rats

riiotgrrl Oct 05, 2009 04:47 PM

The petco where i live is INFESTED with snake mites...if you all get your reptiles from the same place (you do...i worked for petco for 3 hellish years) there is a good chance it is mites.
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"Brains for dinner, brains for lunch. Brains for breakfast, brains for brunch. Brains for every single meal; why can't we have some GUTS?"-Misfits

1.0 ball python- Azazel
0.0.1 Yellow phase ATB- Devilin Hisseyes
0.4 leos- Boji, Sanjae, Fae, Azra
1.1.5 crested geckos- Jubeh and Inari, Avalon, Vajra, Pheonix, and 2 hatchlings
1.1.1 gargoyle geckos- Acacia,Osiris, and Enoki
0.0.1 flying gecko- Malarchy
1.0 leucistic texas ratsnake-Ojo
0.1 albino kenyan sand boa- Akasha
1.0 xanthic kenyan sand boa- Ashoka
1.1 whites tree frogs- Sifaka and Eikon
0.1 Transpecos ratsnake- Cleo
0.1.2 Senegal chameleons- Ambaji, The Chosen One, and Vertigo
1.0 Ruthven's X Thaeri king- Kemushi
0.2 pacific parrolets- Mishka and Kya
1.1 cats- Cairo and Oberon
1.0 crown tail betta- Lazarus
1.0 Husband (hes my favorite, but i dont let the 'kids' know that. )

tkeane89 Oct 05, 2009 08:40 PM

I'm not sure which vendor we get our snakes from but they're very clean. Our Saharan doesn't have any mites. And I made a mistake, he isn't soaking. I don't know the exact temps but I didn't see anything I thought was worth noting. I held him a few weeks back and he was just like the stereotypical Saharan, slow but alert with clear vents and eyes.

Fish_Demon Oct 06, 2009 01:52 PM

As a former Petco employee, these are the things I can think of:

1. Mites! There is a 90% chance the snake has mites. We got our reptiles from CalZoo (I don't know where yours are from), where most of the reptiles are wild-caught and infested with both internal and external parasites. Every week I was having to being loads of reptiles to the vet just so they would be healthy enough to even consider putting up for sale. I would scrub the cages with mite chemicals at least once a week, but it was a futile gesture because the next shipment of reptiles would be infested with them, and I would be back at square one. I can't believe I didn't once manage to transfer the mites to my collection at home.

2. Check the heat! Petco seems to think that the lower the temperatures they keep their animals at, the less they'll eat and therefore the cheaper they will be to maintain. Get a infrared temp gun and check the temperature over that dinky little heat pad they have on the bottom of the tank. At the store where I worked, it was only a couple degrees above room temperature instead of the ~95 degrees it should be for sand boas. A cold sand boa will not eat.

3. Is the snake in a busy area? I've found that Saharan Sand Boas are very easily disturbed compared to Kenyans, and if the snake is constantly having people walk by and little kids banging their fists on the glass, it may be too terrified to eat. That combined with the fact that Petco seems to have some sort of policy that makes it against the rules to put more than like half an inch of substrate in the tank (I guess to stop the animals from hiding in it) means that the snake might not feel safe enough in the tank. Having shelters in the tank probably isn't going to be enough, it needs a deep substrate. I don't put any hides in with my sand boas, just a substrate that's a least a few inches in depth and a few flat objects for them to burrow under (they seem to like the pressure of something on top of them).

I really hope this helps. I still get really frustrated when I think of all the reptiles that are getting sick and dying at Petco just because the store wants to save a few pennies by not providing enough heat, underfeeding, not giving UV to the lizards, etc. Whenever the higher ups would come visit the store I would flip my b**** switch and let them know that this was wrong, but they never showed anything but apathy and just made up lame excuses. Funny thing is that whenever I tried to quit they would be practically begging me to stay, LOL. Hope this helps some, and good luck with the snake.
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- Natalie
(San Francisco Bay Area)

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