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Hank's not eating

FRUSTRATION LEVEL IS HIGH!!!!!!!

Hank is STILL not eating. It has now been 42 days. I have tried almost everything I've found on this website (except for the lizard scenting as I don't have access to a lizard, or live feeding) and nothing has worked. I've even tried just leaving the pink in the viv overnight. Last night after having him out when placed back into the viv he was in the same ball in the same corner this afternoon when I got home from work. He doesn't seems to move around the viv much, however will be active when handled. Unable to tell if he is actually drinking anything. It appears to me that he might be getting dehydrated as it looks like his scales are getting cloudy and I can't imagine that he would be shedding again as he hasn't eaten. I waited 6 days between feeding attempts. Tonight I cut the head off the pinky and tried offering just that and nothing. So I've left the head and the body in a small dish and actually placed inside his "favorite" hide. He continues to hang out on the cool end of his viv. He is down to 53 gr. from 61gr. on 3-17. I wonder if he has decided that he wants to "hibernate" viv temps 68-70 degrees on cool side and 84-86 degrees on warm side. I wonder also if he is now associating mice as a negative. Has anyone ever had this happen and how can you change it to a postive.
 
I'm sitting at around 40 days no food on my guy and still no luck either. Not too worried here just yet. My guy is around 750 g, though, so I won't worry until it's been 3 months. I haven't been doing anything special, just offering an f/t mouse to him about every 10 days in his feeding container and placing him somewhere dark. He came to me feeding on live, but I know he has eaten f/t in the past. If necessary, I will try freshly p/k at some point or maybe rat pinky if I can find one. Hang in there! :)
 
It sounds like he's getting ready to shed again. Yes, he can do that, even if he hasn't eaten. Look for the thread about what is the one thing that worked best to get non-feeder babies started and see if you can get any ideas from that. It's from this week.
 
Some more tips you may not have found: try a rat pinkie, try an ASF fuzzy (African Soft Furs are like crack to corns), take him for a car ride and attempt to feed right after (sounds crazy, but it works). Have you tried any of these things?

And I agree with Nanci, it sounds like he's going to shed again. Have you checked him for mites or scale damage? Snakes will shed more often to try to rid themselves of external parasites or to repair damaged scales. I have an adult male who sheds every 6 weeks or so because he's very active and manages to bend his scales while climbing and rearranging his viv.
 
Hank is still not eating.. I've tried everything listed except the lizard scenting as I do not have access to a lizard and don't want to end up getting one and then have another pet. My question now is.. How long can a 52 gram snake go without eating? As stated before his viv temps are all ok. As of right now I'm thinking that plan is going to be, no attempts at feeding for two weeks, and then when we do attempt it, i'm going to make a special trip to the pet store we got him from to get the exact same mice he got there. (we did attempt with these mice the first few times however, he didn't eat). All I can do now is pray that eventually he will become hungry enough to eat.
 
My guy finally ate last night!!!!! I put him in his feeding bin overnight and covered his cage and could hardly believe my eyes when I checked this morning....and no mouse in sight! This is the first time he's eaten for me and he ended up losing 93 g since I got him, so he's sitting at 701 g now. It had been around 57 days that he went without eating.

Hang in there! I'm sending lucky thoughts your way that your guy will eat now too! :)

To answer your question, from what I've read, snakes can go 3 months at least without eating. I'm too new at this to say if they can go longer than that.
 
HANK FINALLY ATE AFTER 69 DAY!!!!!!

If you read through the thread you will see that we have tried just about everything to little Hank to eat. Now tonight wasn't any different... or so we thought. Was planning to feed Charley, so before doing to attempted to give Hank the pinky that was taken out for Charley. He smelled it, rubbed his nose on it, then turned away and was more interested in crawling up the feeding tongs. So after exercising some (to work up appetite), he was placed back into his viv. Now mind you, he has been acting a little different than we were used to as he seems to be exploring his viv a little more over the past week or so. Instead of just staying on the cool side under his rock hid, he was hiding in the toilet paper tube in the middle and also under his log on the warm side. After feeding Charley, it was then going to be Fuzzy's turn, my husband was going to feed him and then suggested "Take him (Hank) back out and see what he does with this mouse" (this mouse was a 10 gr. black furred hopper). I said " I doubt it is going to make any difference but ok." So I took Hank back out and his look at me was saying " Seriously, I was just out are you crazy or something." So he was placed in a dish, and the hopper was taken out of the bag, and low and behold he "sniff" and ''tasted" it with his tongue, then ever so gently opened his mouth and bit it. I could hardly control my excitement, and hand to gently let go of the mouse and then stood by and watch. We are both just so excited, that he is going to eat. We however can not make heads or tails of why on earth he would snub a pinky but take what I considered a HUGE mouse for some that hasn't eaten in such a long time. But EXCITED none the less, and happy to have a healthy snake who hopefully will continue to eat and be with us for a long time now.
 

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Please disregard the grammatical errors, excitement got the best of me and I just had to get my message out there ASAP!!!!!!
 
I am glad Hank finally ate for you!!! Now I just hope it wasn't too big he keeps it down. Please let us know and help you if he regurgitates the hopper.
 
Nanci said:
Have you tried other black mice before? Congratulations!
Click to expand...

We had tried a black furry one for the first feeding based on the munson scale, which he did try to eat, however he spooked then backed away from it, thus starting our two month battle of wits.
 
CrousesCorns said:
I am glad Hank finally ate for you!!! Now I just hope it wasn't too big he keeps it down. Please let us know and help you if he regurgitates the hopper.
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I hope he keeps it down too. According to the munson scale this mouse isn't ridiculous to feed him. Hank was 51 grams before the feeding & slightly over two feed in length. Just praying his appetite continues.
 
It seems as if everything is going well. No regurg noticed, and there was a small spot of "poo". I thinking maybe things are looking up and the little guy is going to be ok. YIPPIE!!!!!!
 
WTG Hank. If he kept it down this long everything is ok. If you had a regurge you would have known by smell. Pooping is a great sign. Let us know if he eats again since it should be in the next day or so.
 
:dancer::dancer:Hank ate again. This time a white fuzzy 7 gr. Apparently it wasn't anything to do with the brown hair. Hoping that his picky days are over. It isn't anything exciting when he takes it, no "discovery channel moments", but at least he is eating. That is all that matters, food is going in, staying in and coming out the other end a messy pile. We are doing the happy dance here!!!!! :dancer:
 
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