Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Anyone else have BRBs like this? At this point in her life of about 10 years my BRB will only eat the freshest of freshly killed rodents. If a rat has been in my freezer for more than 2 or 3 weeks she will not eat it. Anything from Petco is refused (I assume they tend to keep their frozen stuff for a long time). This is getting to be expensive due to the cost of deliveries and I am trying to not feed her live food from the pet store.

Any tips on getting her to eat 4 to 5 week old rats or am I simply out of luck?

thanks,

C

Not that you'd want to but a ten year old BRB could go a year without eating. How long have you gone in the feeding standoff before you flinched and fed her fresh?

Unless you're breeding her and need to get the calories into her, maybe you should let her get good and hungry before you even offer her food. Like a month or two!!
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (02/01/2010):
42.61 BRB
27.40 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

I agree with Dave and have had to do that with a few of my young BRBs. It's hard not to flinch but you have to resist.

I am curious about one thing. If she is ten years old, has she always been like this or is this a new development?
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John Wiseman
www.rainbowsbydesign.com

18.30 BRBs (as of 6-20-2012)
3.8 others

Thanks for the responses. I had no idea they ate so little as adults. My Carpet Python, in contrast, is hungry always!

She has had less and less of an appetite over the past 5 years or so I would say, but the past 2 years have been more extreme. I have noticed that during the summer months she will reject older rodents and then when I offer her fresh stuff she will often eat.

There is some recent footage of her in the 2nd half of this video: