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Feeding during spring season; male vs. female?

P

proileri

New member
So the busy spring season is upon the snakes, and as is often noted, especially males become more active and aren't always interested in feeding. What about females?

My female has been active lately, definitely in reproductive mood. She does eat, though, which makes sense if she's preparing to lay some eggs. So the female model seems to be some additional wandering around and staying outside during spring, to increase their chances of meeting a mate, but also feeding when possible. Males don't really need to store energy, so they are all about finding some girl snakes and may refuse to eat.

So, how are your snakes behaving during spring? Do you see changes in their activity, and do they feed during the active period?
 
Some of my males go off their food for a few weeks, but not all of them. However all of them do show the "patrolling for a mate" behaviour.

My females eat straight through unless gravid. They get more restless towards laying as well, as they look for a place to lay. This doesn't stop even when provided with a suitable laying box - they still need to make sure there's nowhere better! If they're carrying eggs then most stop eating towards laying as there's just no room for food as well as eggs. For the ones that do that, I offer smaller than usual meals just to keep them eating a little while longer. However I have had odd (very odd!) females which eat as normal right up until they lay. I had one which ate her normal size of mouse the day before laying.

So the rules are - there are no rules!
 
bitsy said:
Some of my males go off their food for a few weeks, but not all of them. However all of them do show the "patrolling for a mate" behaviour.

My females eat straight through unless gravid. They get more restless towards laying as well, as they look for a place to lay.

So the rules are - there are no rules!
Click to expand...

Oh, there are rules alright, we just talk about averages and probabilities with them :)

I'm interested in how many of your males and females would you say become more active during the spring? How many of them go off food?
 
I would say:
-All 4 of my males become more active during spring
- 2 of my males have feeding strikes of various lengths. Might be only a couple of feeds or it might last two months. Would've been 3 of them but I've lost Jonesy now and he was always the worst offender. He routinely refused food for three months over the breeding season, for his entire life.

Mating them or not mating them, doesn't seem to have any bearing on the males' activity or feeding behaviour. They don't start eating again or calm down once they've mated.

Females are a bit less clear cut. If I mate them and they become gravid, then they invariably become restless towards laying time. I have one non-breeder which ovulates wildly and clearly becomes uncomfortable. She will also exhibit that characteristic restlessness and food refusal and will only settle if given a laying box. She's never laid anything in her life, despite several apparently successful hookups with proven males over a few years, so she's just an oddity. The rest of my non-breeding females don't become restless or go off their food.

I have 4 breeding females now, of which 3 will go off their food completely for 2-3 weeks before laying. 1 can eat pretty much up until laying, but even she has years when she refuses.

It's predictable to a certain extent, but they're always willing to throw me a curve ball and do something completely different some years.
 
My adult male snow doesn't eat and is extremely active during the mating season. My young (18 month) butter male i used for the first time this year hasn't shown any altered behaviour at all. This might be because the snow is in a stack where females are housed and the butter is in my daughters bedroom with no females. My amel girl refused food last year directly after her first lock up until she laid, but not this year. I think that she got unsettled because i put the male in her Viv for mating. This year i used a separate tub for hook ups and she's much happier and hungrier!!
 
Okay so im not sure if my snake is a male or female, but i have been such a worry wart lately because my corn will not stop moving! I mean sometimes. But I get home.. and especially at night and its just roaming around the cage and trying to find a way out. Way way way more outgoing than usual. AND WONT EAT. Sooo im wondering... Then just stuck its head in the water for a good 20 seconds and was moving around like he was trying to see what was under the water. (totally un-related) but it was seriously the weirdest thing.
 
bitsy said:
Mating them or not mating them, doesn't seem to have any bearing on the males' activity or feeding behaviour. They don't start eating again or calm down once they've mated.
Click to expand...

It's logical behavior, as males might find multiple mates during the season, and those males who are willing to find more females will also get more offspring.

So we could probably say that males usually become restless during spring, and can often go off food. Females, on the other hand, may sometimes become restless, but rarely refuse food unless they have mated and are getting closer to laying. Does this sound about right?
 
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