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Boa feeding woes:(

danielle

danielle

New member
So my little lunch has now refused his third meal in a row making it a little over 3 weeks since he last ate. He shed Saturday and the week before I knew it was coming so his not eating did not worry me. I have read some boas take the whole winter off and refuse to feed so I'm not sure I'm really worried, but more puzzled.

I heat all his meals with a blowdryer, brain them, and feed from tongs and usually he snatches his moosie in minutes, but now he just goes into his hide and ignores them. His warm side is 90-92 and cool side in the mid 70's, he always has fresh water, and has been less hissy with me lately. Anyone else's boa fasting or know any good feeding tricks other than warm brained mouse to try?
 
mice dipped in boiled water does the trick.
Also, how old is he? some male boas when they start hitting sexual maturity will fast... generally speaking, a male BCI can easily take a meal only once every three weeks as routine(an adult).

You may want to just leave the mouse there though... he may eat it later... if he shows a lot of interest when you first show him the mouse(even if he loses interest soon after)- there's a good chance he will tag it if it's warn enough. Also, try gently placing the snout of the mouse to his mouth... I had some boas that I had to gently "persuade" them... it sometimes took around three minutes of gently moving the mouse around so that it will always touch the front of the boas mouth as they moved....
 
my hog island also has refused a meal 3 weeks in a row, and the advice i got was
A. its normal- its winter and a lot of snakes don't eat as much and
B. leave the mouse over night in the tub. Usually the dark and loneliness makes them wanna eat.

when we fed our guy last week, he showed no interest in the rat, but we left it in for about an hour or so and shut off all the lights and left him alone, and it went down easy- so maybe yur boa just needs privacy?

hope that helps
 
I'm gonna try to feed one more time later, and if he still refuses leave it over night. If its still a no go I guess I'll hope for better luck next week. He's maybe 6 months old and has been a solid feeder, but changes in season I know commonly throw them off:)
 
Frustrating, isn't it? I have a young red tail boa, who has been a fussy eater ever since I bought him. I followed all of the breeder's advice on getting his viv and feeding conditions just right, leaving the food in with him overnight, etc. After watching him refuse for more than a month, I decided to try giving him a live adult mouse.... and he struck within a few seconds and has been feeding well on live ever since. Not as convenient as frozen / thawed, but at least he is eating now and finally putting on some weight. We will revisit frozen / thawed in the future.
 
Well its been a month now since the guy has eaten and he has lost some noticeable girth and is showing loose skin. I only try to feed once a week and I hear many boas go off feed for the entire winter both males and females so when do I worry? He has good grip when taken out to be handled, pooped last week, and is drinking.
 
I have a red tail boa myself. When I bought him, the store told me they feed on Thursday and everything. Well long story short, took him back to pet store after a month and they could not get him to eat. So I took him to a repti store and they put him in the back. They had him in a heated room and everything. The next day I called and they said he ate a ratt that night. He will not take it from the tongs at all right now. So I have the small deli cup he came in. This is what I feed him in. I get the ratt real hot and place in deli cup. Get snake and put in deli cup. I have to wait 30 minutes to a hours before he will eat. I am not sure if you are feeding in the viv or not but you could try that. You can also bump the hot side up to95 and see if that helps also. I also hope you are using like a infared guage to get your temps and not the analog ones. See if that help, it might. Also mine was loosing body mass and skin was showing when I took him to the repti store as well. Hope this helps you out.
 
Well...I know with my BP that she usually needs me to leave it overnight. She's a nervous girl (not having been handled much most of her life until she came to me) so pretty much any movement or noise will throw her off. Shes struck for me a few times, but most of the time it needs to be DARK and QUIET.
Good luck for sure!! keep us posted.
 
I'm sorry if you answered this already and I missed it, but have you tried a small live mouse or rat? Done the zombie dance? Tried rat instead of mice? Just tossing some things out there. I have a male that has eaten like a pig for the past year and now he's not eaten for the past 3 weeks. But he is getting close to sexual maturity so that's probably his issue.
 
I haven't tried live though in another few weeks if he still won't eat that will be my last resort:( His temps are read with a temp gun and thermometer with probe so I'm okay there. He ate a good 10 or more meals for me off tongs no problemo so I was wondering if he is just going to be my boy who takes winters off, or if I should be freaking. I have left the mouse overnight to which he took a big old poop on it, leave him covered, have him in a quiet room, haven't changed the cage setup, dangle and reheat and dangle some more, brained, tried a larger mouse, and a smaller one, tried rats, lizard scenting, and washing in ivory soap first. When I dangle he shows interest and flicks at it intently for a good 10 minutes than slithers away. I reheat and again he shows interest and then just backs off. Last week I took him out and rubbed the house long his mouth thinking if he bites me while getting the mouse I'm good, but instead he wanted to tongue flick my eyes.
 
I'm just concerned about the weight loss and lose skin. A young boa can go so rapidly. I did have one boa that got to the point of yours. It was a powerful feeder, looked great and had nice muscle tone. One day it just stopped eating, it was around winter time so I chalked it up to the season. It never went back to eating the way it had done before. It lost weight and started to look frail. I decided to change the way I fed it. I had to go with live adult mice. It was really weird because after a couple meals of live it went back to eating f/t.
 
I agree. The live is really worth a try. My problem feeder boa mentioned earlier in this thread really benefitted from it. I fed him live for several weeks and beefed him up. Then last weekend I offered him frozen / thawed on tongs, and he ate two hoppers voraciously. I'd never seen him eat frozen / thawed that eagerly before!
 
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