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Hasnt eaten for two weeks

Specter_Blue

Specter_Blue

New member
A little background:
It has been awhile since ive posted. Jack is now a little over a year old now, just broke 4ft last month, and is a little bigger around than a roll of quarters. He has been an incredible eater, putting down multiple mice in a sitting, I moved him to small rats about a month ago.
Last tuesday I gave him a small rat which he gobbled down. I tried to feed him again this tuesday, and he aggressively killed the rat, but then refused to eat it. Today I tried with a hampster (the pet store i go to gives me them for the price of mice when they have "bitey" ones, jack has eaten them before on a few occasions with no problems). He completely ignored it. this confuses me since he was at least willing to kill the rat last week.

a few things ive noticed:
he is about to shed, his eyes are currently foggy, although that usually doesnt deter himf rom eating.
he has been spending unusual ammounts of time under the substrate, almost as if he is trying to hibernate
he did not "poo" as much as i expected given the size of his last meal.
The temp is a little low right now, high60s(cold), mid70s(hot side), but it is usually low 80s to high 70s.

i know its a little early to be worrying (only a week and a half after a fairly large meal) but this is very unusual behavior. Im willing to accept that maybe its the cumulation of some of the above things... just thought id check. Thanks
 
He is about to shed mate, that's all the answer you need.

As snakes get older they require less and less food as their growth rate decreases as well.

It is perfectly normal. I would advice to simply let him be until he is done shedding completely. That's what I do and it worked perfectly so far.

Good luck and keep us posted.
 
In addition to him about to shed...With the lower temps his metabolism has slowed down as well so he will not be eating as frequently.

There is nothing to worry about at this point.
 
Boy that a long snake for a year old. :cheers:
But anyway both points seem to be the cause.
But I'm confused on why can you regulated the temps up a bit to help with digestion.
And is there a reason why you can feed f/t. It might be safer when you up the food again.
 
f/t? not sure what ur saying :confused:
anyway, the cold temps was my mistake. here in Iowa the outside temps are erratic. We have to leave windows open otherwise it will soar to 80 degrees in my apt (we get free heat/air, but have no control over it :shrugs:)
so i had the window open and it got cold while i was away at classes. came back and it was low 70s in the tank.

he has started eating again. however I think he is slowing down a bit. hes hungry right now (he always stares at me when hes hungry, and even tho he has no expression, he seems expectant.... weird :uhoh:) but apparently his eating habbits are dependent on the last time hes um.... poo'd. He will usually eat 2 small rodents (mice or hampsters) or 1 larger (yet still small for a) rat. but i guess if he has one in the chamber he will only take 1 mouse or hampster.

u guys were right though, the shedding is what did it. this was the first time ive ever seen shedding affect his mood or behavior, but i guess it comes with age.

and to whoever said hes big, i hear that alot. this is my first snake so i dont know what to expect, but hes just over 4 feet long now (measuring his last shed) and i got him in the middle of summer last year. he was just a hatchling, about 8" long and no bigger than a pencil. i have a thread on here with pics :) so yeah, my little guy is growing up.
 
so hes asking why I dont feed frozen mice? or why i can? confused again. anyway, I stopped feeding frozen mice because they are somewhat messy, can be prone to pop....
Also, Jack get much more excited about the live mice. He will simply eat the frozen, but wont take the time to "kill" them. The living mice force him to flex a little. Gets his heart pumping. I try to keep a close eye to try to make sure hes safe.
 
If there prone to pop you probably got old ones or ones that already have been defrosted once. Or perhaps were dead for a bit before beeing frozen. I have good mice over here and *never* did one pop. Some bad ones i got from a pet store did have that problem.

If you feed hamsters you will eventually get a dead snake. They are mean buggers which bite harder and die slower then mice. You cannot interfere in the split second the mice/hamster/rat bites your snakes eye out.

If you are really set on exercising your snake give him a big viv with things to climb on. If you want some strangling action use a thong to wiggle the f/t mice. Or at least whack the rodents brain in. The death spasms seems like live to any snake. You can use the thong to give the mouse some tugs on the tail/leg whatever. They will start to squeeze.
 
Double het said:
If you want some strangling action use a thong to wiggle the f/t mice.
Click to expand...

:laugh01:

I know you mean tongs but still I have pictures of sexy mice in thongs in my head now.

I think of live food like this, Imagine your mother saying to you "Well sweetie I was going to make you some PB&J but you seem a little sluggish lately so I'm going to toss you into a cage with a honey badger and you can eat him if you can kill him."
 
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