Anyone else ? $nakes

[pitbulllady]

Have I been unclear ? I feed frozen thawed ... One snake refuses/d frozen and takes live.
I like owning snakes they just frustrate me sometimes, when they don't eat like clock work !

I don't know of ANY animal species that "eats like clockwork", not all the time. Even my dogs will skip a day of eating once in awhile, or refuse something I got for them, and cats? Seriously, they invented "picky"! Animals lose their appetites from time to time just like we do. When you're dealing with ectothermic animals, that have far less of a caloric-intake requirement, you are especially going to see days when they refuse food, and that is especially true THIS time of year, when the animals know they should be brumating, anyway. I can tell you this: if it ever got so frustrating and aggravating to me that I'd have to post on the internet about my frustration, it would be time for me to find a new hobby, one that does not include keeping animals, because there are just some aspects to animal husbandry that are a given, and not eating or refusing food from time to time is one of them, and if that aspect were really that big a deal to me, then I'd have to question whether I should keep animals at all.

pitbulllady

 

[skar]

Cute way of being a jerk. Not the issue. Um ...haven't had any animals or otherwise refuse food especially dogs, cats yes . So you.can question yourself yet I don't need too.

 

[pitbulllady]

Skar, I have to ask...how old are you? I STRONGLY get the impression that you are a child, technically, that you are under 20. Am I right or wrong on this? I also have a feeling that you will soon get bored enough of your snakes and want to ditch them. There are people on this forum with decades more experience at animal keeping than you have, probably way more years of keeping animals than you've even been alive, people who have offered advice and told of their own personal experience in the hopes that this little light bulb will eventually go off over your no0bie head, but instead, you refer to us as "jerks" and insinuate that others of us are stupid. Well, what exactly do you WANT, kiddo? You come on complaining that you are frustrated that your snakes don't always "eat like clockwork", even though it's been explained to you that this is NORMAL. Do you want sympathy? Sorry, not getting it from me. You want someone to give you some magic spell that will make your snakes eat every time, whatever you offer them? Ain't happening. Animals are frustrating at times, kid, DEAL with it! If you can't then you seriously need to look into another hobby that does not involve animals, period! Go back and read some of your posts, like the one you made to me and your reply to Ludedor24, and tell me, who is the REAL jerk here?

pitbulllady

 

[kaitala]

Have you tried spacing out their feedings more? Are your snakes on natural light or are you mimicking summer lighting?

Light, yes, even in your nocturnal species, makes a difference. They won't think it's winter if temps and lighting are constant. By the same token, you can trigger a reproductive cycle, simply with a photobrumation in some snakes.

If your snakes aren't eating "like clockwork", I'd recommend spacing out feedings. A healthy and hungry snake will eat. When we keep them in captivity, we tend to over-feed them, as well as our other pets, our kids, and ourselves! Never in the wild have I seen an obese squirrel, deer, garter, bird, nerodia, frog/toad etc,nor any pics of overweight wolves, tigers, etc. yet how many Americans and their pets are overweight? Have you seen the "sausage syndrome" many corn snakes get?

Also, check your temps, and try misting a short time before you feed. Often, prey items come out after a storm, so the elevated humidity can be a feeding cue for them.

 

[pouchedrat]

I've never had a snake that ate like clockwork..

I own 12 snakes: 3 african egg-eaters, 7 garters of different species, 1 corn snake, 1 milk snake hybrid. my egg eaters will go through months of not eating, before they begin scarfing down eggs again like it was going out of style. I'd have to say the garter snakes, however, almost never refuse a meal. I feed frozen/thawed, and the garters are on frozen/thawed fish.

as far as overweight, my prairie dogs are naturally chunky pets, LOL!

 

[kaitala]

Pouchedrat, what kinds of garters? I'm keeping morphs of radix, infernalis, sirtalis, and marcianus. Had pickeringi, but rehomed the female when her mate passed.

 

[skar]

@pitbull - No your wrong all the way across. You should have learned earlier in life that your presumptious nature and arrogance won't get you far. I never insinuated anyone to being stupid nor a jerk.... Just you being a jerk. Ludedor24 was not meant to be a knock down unless you read it in a bad way, that was in general. I did not place a post as a cry for help but as a discussion. So go pound sand. @kaitala thanks, hmm No I haven't tried artificial lighting and no haven't seen the sausage corns lol. Though I have seen dogs that look pathetically obese.

 

[pouchedrat]

T.s. similis (florida blue stripe) albino checkered, and neon blue california red sided garters. I hope to pick up a melanistic, snow, and the pretty silver eastern morphs this coming season.

 

[bchbum11]

My male western hognose went through the same phase of refusing all food items. Think he ate one mouse over the past 2 months, but wasn't droping any weight so I wasn't too concerned about it. As was previously mentioned, I think it might have just been the drop in air temp triggering burmation, so I just cooled him along with my kingsnakes and am pretty sure he'll be an eating machine when warmed back up. I get frustrated when my snakes don't eat also, but most are on f/t (sounds like yours are too), so it isn't a huge deal as long as they're maintaining weight. Just view the uneaten mouse the same way you would a large, slightly more expensive, cricket in one of your pre-moult T cages and toss it the next morning if it hasn't been eaten. Kind of funny, out of all my snakes the only ones that don't refuse a meal from time to time are my ball pythons... Guess it's just another case of each animal being an individual

 

[pitbulllady]

My male western hognose went through the same phase of refusing all food items. Think he ate one mouse over the past 2 months, but wasn't droping any weight so I wasn't too concerned about it. As was previously mentioned, I think it might have just been the drop in air temp triggering burmation, so I just cooled him along with my kingsnakes and am pretty sure he'll be an eating machine when warmed back up. I get frustrated when my snakes don't eat also, but most are on f/t (sounds like yours are too), so it isn't a huge deal as long as they're maintaining weight. Just view the uneaten mouse the same way you would a large, slightly more expensive, cricket in one of your pre-moult T cages and toss it the next morning if it hasn't been eaten. Kind of funny, out of all my snakes the only ones that don't refuse a meal from time to time are my ball pythons... Guess it's just another case of each animal being an individual

There's no point in trying to tell him anything about your personal experiences with snakes, bchbum11. That would be "presumptuous" on your part. He knows it all already and is obviously just testing us more experienced reptile keepers to see if we know anywhere NEAR as much as he does. He obviously is not interesting really gaining any new insight into reptile behavior.

pitbulllady

 

[TreeGuy]

Snakes go off feed. Deal with it. It's totally normal and natural. I have never once in 10+ years of keeping reptiles, most of which species that I am certain you've never even heard of, lost a snake to starvation.

They eat when they need to, not on a human schedual.

skar

You need to learn to take advice from more experienced keepers.
This self rightious attitude your displaying based on keeping a couple easy as pie colubrids is sickening.

pittbulllady is a talented, knowledgable and most of all experienced keeper that has kept everything from big cats to hot snakes.

Listen to what people around you say and you might actually learn something.

(insert insult here)

 

[kaitala]

@kaitala thanks, hmm No I haven't tried artificial lighting and no haven't seen the sausage corns lol. Though I have seen dogs that look pathetically obese.

What do you use for heating? If you are trying to mimick warmer seasons, give them a basking spot with a daylight/incandescent bulb, not just a heatmat/ceramic/heattape spot.

Also, they are meant to brumate, so it might behoove you to put them through a brumation, despite not intending for them to breed. They usually do come back with significant appetite after a brumation, and it's easier to work WITH nature, as opposed to against it.

If you want to brumate, there are many tricks to that, just google, or message me, I'd be happy to share my experiences. I have to say, remember that you are trying to mimic an hibernaculum, so if you can't block the light from the brumation room, at least cover them with a blanket, towel, etc.

 

[kaitala]

Oh, forgot about the basking spot, you can use a fluorescent to mimic the lighting conditions, and use that with a heat mat, heat tape or ceramic. The minimal UV (enough to grow plants, not enough to get a tan) should be more than enough to mimic sunlight for them, just combine that directly with the heat sources, as would be found in the wild (uv from sun, heat from sun all in the same spot- not cold in the sunlit area and warm in the shade).

 

[skar]

@ treeguy - I've been done with the pit lad thing, maybe you two can communicate with fallible comments.

@ kaitala: Sweet, thank you for the helpful info. I suppose I will have to achieve a new virtue of patience. . .
Ya, I just use a heatmat and natural light that comes in.