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ANNAREXIC Slithergurl666 ANNAREXIC JEFF QUARLES Gonzi Darby Greatballzofire JackAsp JackAsp Greatballzofire Cphill58 |
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ANNAREXIC View Profile |
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| 03/19/06 12:20pm |
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Slithergurl666 View Profile |
Message To: ANNAREXIC In reference to Message Id: 699550 Not eating bull snake
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| 03/20/06 09:37am |
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ANNAREXIC View Profile |
Message To: Slithergurl666 In reference to Message Id: 700842
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| 03/21/06 08:37pm |
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JEFF QUARLES View Profile |
Message To: ANNAREXIC In reference to Message Id: 703487 Not eating bull snake
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| 04/17/06 12:15pm |
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Gonzi View Profile |
Message To: JEFF QUARLES In reference to Message Id: 743947 Not eating bull snake
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| 04/22/06 07:17am |
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Darby View Profile |
Message To: ANNAREXIC In reference to Message Id: 699550 Not eating bull snake
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| 05/18/09 05:34pm |
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Greatballzofire View Profile |
Message To: ANNAREXIC In reference to Message Id: 703487 Not eating bull snake
My California king snake quit eating for over a month last summer when the temperatures got hot here in the Sierra foothills. She estivated (summer hibernation) to get through the hot weather. By late September when temperatures cooled she began eating again. Granted, this is not a bull snake, but what your vet said about him being too warm may be the problem. |
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| 05/18/09 07:24pm |
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JackAsp View Profile |
Message To: Greatballzofire In reference to Message Id: 2007236 Not eating bull snake
A lot of snakes that were eating machines while growing suddenly, once they hit puberty, start to slow down over things like lighting, shed cycles, yadda yadda yadda. So the problem could be something that’s never been a problem before. Just for an idea-dump: If you’re using plain old strip thermometers, no matter how accurate, switch to probe thermometers or temp guns. it’s not about the side of the glass. it’s about the air, the substrate, and the bottom of the glass. You m,ight be surprised how much difference there is in those things. Give him 14-16 hours of daylight, with a timer to keep it regular, AND give him a rgular period of darkness as well. Time it so as soon as the room is light anyway, his cage is very bright (strip-lighting is fine) and once that light clicks out, keep him dark. My own bull, Winkle, is the only snake I keep in my living room, and the only lamps out here that I use at night have red bulbs in them so I don’t interrupt his photoperiod. I know that in the wild they spend a lot of time in burrows and even do most of their hunting there, but our snakes aren’t in the wild. Beats the hell out of me what’s different, but what I see with mine is a snake that sleeps like a log all night and spends almost the entire day cruising around, begging, watching, coming out to play when I pop his door, and of course eating. Use full-spectrum bulbs, or at least somthing that looks amazingly similar to them. Mostly, I use expired striplights that no longer put out UVB so are not sufficient for lizards or turtles... but still put out the same visual spectrum as when they were brand new. There are also cheap naturalistic-looking striplights available that I think would be just as good. Don’t worry, I’m not one of those loonies who insist that every single thing on the face of the earth including albino slugs is going to die of MBD without sunlight. Go to the turtle or collared lizard forum and I’ll ramble at you about UVB, but all I’m saying here us that most of our light bulbs do not scream "Yay! Summertime!" at their deepest instincts as loud as somthing that looks more like sunlight does. Since he stopped eating in January, I suspect winter depression was a factor. The experiment that convinced me that UV lights had psychological benefits (to those that need them; I openly admit that most snakes do not, but if you’ve got a more high-maintenance individual you just shrug and do what you’ve gotta do) was getting a carpet python (who had always stopped eating in September or late August and refused to start again until March, April, or a few times May) to start eating in early February and continue until late October. The reason the evidence was so persuasive was I’d had her for 19 years! AND I was one of those drunken loonies you hear about who don’t cage their python, so it wasn’ even like changing the type of ceiling-bulb had any real temperature difference; she was actually using a heated doghouse in the spare bedroom to thermoregulate when necessary, although as mentioned I keep my room temperature pretty warm. Sorry about getting all tangenty. it’ll all tie back in a sec. The point is: the ONLY difference, compared to many years of comparison, was natural-looking light. And that wasn’t even with a particularly diurnal species. Boots was more crepuscular. Bulls, though, while there are indeed reports of them being active at night, just as we’ve all seen pigeons active after dark, strongly prefer daylight. Lighting is a hugely powerful tool. Use it. There have been tests that show that UVA lights have improved the behavior of many reptiles. There have been many other tests that showed that regular hardware store bulbs put out UVA ANYWAY. Both are true. I think the element that gets ignored here is the tint of the bulb’s spectrum. Bulbs that look more like sunlight are better for animals with many, many forms of depression than bulbs that look like... bathroom lights, or weird purply fish-illuminators. Give him deep substrate. Bulls really don’t climb that much. Buy a huge bag of bedding and just dump it all in there. I know, in the long run it would cost a fortune to keep changine, plus there’s the whole wastefulness factor, but just for now: deeper substrate has two advantages: 1. it’s fun. Fun won’t make him hungry, but, really, so what? if he’s not gonna eat tomorrow, would you rather have him just not eating, or having a great ime digging tunnels all over in there, while still completely unbothered anyway by the fact that he’s not hungry? Incidentally, if he already has deep substrate, they seem to get a kick out of experimenting with new types. Every Pit I’ve ever seen that switched from anything to anything was like a kid in those rooms full of plastic balls... for like one or two days, and then just went back to acting normal. by the way, I suggest wood pulp over shavings. the mosat common brand is Carefresh, but my preferred brand is actually Healthy Pet. It’s like soft, nontoxic paper mache with pretty much no dust whatsoever. other brands that I’ve tried have mopre dust, but to be honest I’ve never actually seen a snake seem to be bothered by it, the preference is just a "long term health, using it year after year after year" thing. 2. Deeper substrate means bigger thermal gradient. This ties in with what I said before about the complexity of getting accurate temps. More volume of burrowing space will give you a WAY better margin of error. Does he eat in-cage or out-of-cage? Some snakes respond well to being in a distraction-free enclosed area with food. it’s probably the instinct that tells them "Yay, I found a nest while Mama Rat wasn’t home!" He’s too old to just stuff into a deli cup, obviously, but outside the cage darker is better anyway. try leaving him alone with his food for an hour in something like a small beer cooler. And before you do so, try pre-gaming by drying off the mouse with hairblower, close enough to the tank that he’ll be able to smell it. In fact, keep blow-drying it until it has a sickly-sweet smell like chicken liver, THEN put it in the beer cooler or whatever you’re using, put the snake in too, close it and make sure it’s secure, and don’t even look at him for an hour. Do whatever it takes. (I for example, have a lizard who is almost-but-not-quite finished laying eggs, so to keep from driving her up the wall checking every five minutes I am drinking King Cobra Malt Liquor and writing about a million words on coaxing snakes to eat.) This isn’t guaranteed to work, but it sure as hell doesn’t hurt. My Madagascan speckled, for most of the year, pretty much INSISTS that his mice be dryer-fried for him, or his eating patterns get very upsetting. That was also the trick that I used to switch my CCP from hamsters to guinea pigs; aparently fried rodetns smell way better. To THEM. Sure as hell not to us. Too bad she didn’t think fried rats smelled edible.. but that’s a whole ’nother thing... By the way, don’t freak out if you see some guts starting to come out of the rodent. it’s a signal that you can’t really blowdry it any more withut making a mess, but as far as palatability, the snakes don’t mind. Honestly, I’m surprised my Madagascan guy doesn’t have mouth rot from all that gut exposure. But he doesn’t. If he eats in-cage, and has traditionally responded poorly to out-of-cage feedings, there’s a trick for that, too. I still suggest blow-drying. if you’re picking any sense whatsoever out of my increasingly blurry ramblings, you are using nice deep substrate for him. Which means you are using substrate. Which means a freshly thawed wet mouse is going to get stuff stuck to it, which the snake will probably pass with a little discomfort but live. Screw discomfort. He’s not even eating now, he’s had his stress quota. Plus, the blow-drying sets the mood. Ideally, he’ll see you opening the cage to put the mouse/rat in as a continuation of the smelling food thing (=he remembers that You Bring Food) instead of seing the intended food item as a continuation of The Big Hand coming into his place of refuge. I know, I know, you’ve just handed food right to him a million times. But remember what I said about babies eating anyway? Often they get neurotic much later in life. That’s actually only half the in-cage trick. The other half is to put something light and flat upside down over bother the snake and the food item. You can try paper plates, if you’re going for the "down in a rat burrow" effect. If his activity patterns are very light-based, wicker is also a good option. try to ease it down while he’s sniffing the food. at least get his head under there with it, but do it without scaring him. I personally think going to live prey will just complicate the equation. You know perfectly well that when nothing is wrong he eats dead. And switching him to live, at this age, is a hugely bad idea. They have a learning curve where constriction is involved. They start out eating live pinkies, then as they grow they experiment with subduing fuzzies and hoppers, and by the time they’re eating mice that can bite back they’ve learned how to make a quick kill. However, your guy is big enough that he will just swallow fuzzies and hoppers alive, and get no killing experience from them. He’ll still be just as likely to get ripped up by the first adult that he tried to treat like that. Unless you plan on buying millions of live hoppers for an adult bull who has learned that he likes live prey better, the solution is to tweak his environment and get him back to eating normally the way he was before. |
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| 05/21/09 01:45am |
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JackAsp View Profile |
Message To: JackAsp In reference to Message Id: 2008541 Not eating bull snake
Most undertank heaters are too much of a good thing. They can be toned down a bit with a seven or eight dollar lamp dimmer from Hoke Depot or Lowes. If it does turn out that your temps are higher than you thought, it’s fixable. |
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| 05/21/09 01:59am |
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Greatballzofire View Profile |
Message To: JackAsp In reference to Message Id: 2008545 Not eating bull snake
With my UTH’s, I attach the outdoor probe of my indoor-outdoor thermometer directly over the UTH, so it reads the temperature exactly on the plastic of my 105 quart sterilite tub. I’m using the Zoomed mini heater at four watts, as this is safe for plastic tubs and the wattage is economical. I’m not on the grid, am generator, battery banks and solar, so every watt counts. My snakes can burrow right down to the hot spot, which they like to do after they eat. Have thermostat to regulate, of course. I have had no problems with my gopher snakes eating; they are the most fun of all my snakes when it comes to feeding. I hand feed them all to keep them "socialized". My kings are for the most part shyer, and although most will feed in their feeding jars, a couple (brother and sister) do best if I put the pinks at the edge of their hides, so they can get it when nobody is looking. |
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| 05/22/09 09:07am |
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Cphill58 View Profile |
Message To: Greatballzofire In reference to Message Id: 2009225 Not eating bull snake
Too bad the OP never came back to see it... Always great to hear from you guys ...thanks Cp |
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| 05/30/09 05:56pm |
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Not eating bull snake
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