user 29560
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Howdy from Canada, Aussies. I've had this adult male Morelia bredli for about 2 years now. He's about 7 years old. He's never been a star feeder for me, so over the couple years I have wasted many rats trying to get him to eat. I'm not too concerned about it and figure he's probably just a fussy feeder, but I wanted to run the story past some experienced Bredli keepers to see if this is common and all and if there are any suggestions on what I might try to decrease rejection.
I started out trying to feed him every two weeks and even to this day he is really reliable about snapping his prey and coiling. He has never once turned his nose away from food, but the problem is that after I leave him alone to eat his food, he very often eventually drops the food and just leaves it there until I remove it from the tank.
After a while of going through this, I started to scale back his feedings to once every three weeks and sometimes every four weeks depending on how his acceptance has been at the time. This has had somewhat improved results as he acccepts more often with 4 weeks between feedings, but last night, for instance, he still rejected his food even though it's been 4 weeks since the last one.
I'm not concerned about anything *wrong* per se, but I'd like to find less rats the next morning sitting in the corner of his tank needing to be cleaned up, so throw some ideas at me if you have them. Here are the answers to the usual questions.
Species: pure Morelia bredlia, nothing unusual
Age: roughly 7yrs
Size: 6' long, 2.5 kgs
Enclosure: 100cm wide 50cm deep, 50cm tall
It has a radiant heat panel on the ceiling so his hot spot is up on a perch and the coolest spot is on the floor on the opposite side of the tank. He uses both spots pretty much daily.
He has a huge water bowl, large enough to bathe in and a huge cave available which he only uses when he's in shed.
Hot Spot: 33c day, 28c night
Cool spot: ~28c day, 26 night (roughly)
Humidity: roughly 60%
Feed: large sized rats raised by a reputable local hobby breeder (not commercial animals)
Health history: nothing notable. I purchased him from a breeder who was replacing his older breeding stock. He looks and behaves in perfect health. No laboured breathing, no wheezing, never any signs of RI or any sort of mouth or scale.
Bowel movements are infrequent, and regular enough (based on his feeding schedule) that I'm quite confident in ruling out any sort of impaction issue.
Feeding method: I feed him inside his enclosure and I always feed him after dark so that once he snaps his prey, I flick the light off and leave him in privacy. I'll usually check him before I go to bed, but sometimes I feed him shortly before bed and check the next morning to find the rat dropped.
I'll probably let him sit around for a couple weeks now before trying to feed him again.
Thanks in advance for any feedback, or even just telling me "My bredli does this all the time" will make me feel better.
I started out trying to feed him every two weeks and even to this day he is really reliable about snapping his prey and coiling. He has never once turned his nose away from food, but the problem is that after I leave him alone to eat his food, he very often eventually drops the food and just leaves it there until I remove it from the tank.
After a while of going through this, I started to scale back his feedings to once every three weeks and sometimes every four weeks depending on how his acceptance has been at the time. This has had somewhat improved results as he acccepts more often with 4 weeks between feedings, but last night, for instance, he still rejected his food even though it's been 4 weeks since the last one.
I'm not concerned about anything *wrong* per se, but I'd like to find less rats the next morning sitting in the corner of his tank needing to be cleaned up, so throw some ideas at me if you have them. Here are the answers to the usual questions.
Species: pure Morelia bredlia, nothing unusual
Age: roughly 7yrs
Size: 6' long, 2.5 kgs
Enclosure: 100cm wide 50cm deep, 50cm tall
It has a radiant heat panel on the ceiling so his hot spot is up on a perch and the coolest spot is on the floor on the opposite side of the tank. He uses both spots pretty much daily.
He has a huge water bowl, large enough to bathe in and a huge cave available which he only uses when he's in shed.
Hot Spot: 33c day, 28c night
Cool spot: ~28c day, 26 night (roughly)
Humidity: roughly 60%
Feed: large sized rats raised by a reputable local hobby breeder (not commercial animals)
Health history: nothing notable. I purchased him from a breeder who was replacing his older breeding stock. He looks and behaves in perfect health. No laboured breathing, no wheezing, never any signs of RI or any sort of mouth or scale.
Bowel movements are infrequent, and regular enough (based on his feeding schedule) that I'm quite confident in ruling out any sort of impaction issue.
Feeding method: I feed him inside his enclosure and I always feed him after dark so that once he snaps his prey, I flick the light off and leave him in privacy. I'll usually check him before I go to bed, but sometimes I feed him shortly before bed and check the next morning to find the rat dropped.
I'll probably let him sit around for a couple weeks now before trying to feed him again.
Thanks in advance for any feedback, or even just telling me "My bredli does this all the time" will make me feel better.
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