My pythons won't eat - I need help!

[Starter]

I have bought four large pythons earlier this year, a pair of Bredlis and a pair of Murray Darlings, all about 6-7 years old and about 2.5 metres in length. I have had them brumate over winter time and expected them to start eating properly again once it got warmer. Between mid of August and beginning of September each of them had a rat meal. They were happy to eat one or several defrosted dead rats each - but each of them did it only once! Since then, I have been offering them food again and again, and they wouldn't eat it. That's about 6 weeks again without eating, while we are having long sunny days and they are active and moving around. I have been offering them defrosted rats, guinea pigs and bunny rabbits, and they showed no interest. After having wasted two dozens of frozen feeder animals, I let live baby rabbits and guinea piglets hopple through their enclosure - and the snakes showed no hunting reaction at all. Though, they were watching them with great interest - like us watching TV. For about one week, I have now had 2 or 3 young live rats living in a box at the bottom of each snake enclosure... and they live there happily ever after. - Is something wrong with my big snakes?
I also have a little one - 18 months old "Esmeralda", a Bredli python girl - and she eats eagerly a little rat or two every week or fortnight. No problems with her.
All my snakes have shed their skins well within the last 2 months and show no signs of disease. So what could be possibly wrong? Why are the big ones not eating?

 

[ronhalling]

I have found that on the few ocasions i let our big girl Brumate it took up to 10 weeks or more for her to be back on a regular feeding routine, if they had a meal just after Brumation and it has only been 6 weeks i would not be worrying about it too much, leave them be for another few weeks and then try again, they might be a bit more interested then, lets face it whether it be SA or NSW the seasons have been a bit funny this year so they might be reacting to that as well. ...........................Ron

 

[Porkbones]

Ever think they just might not be hungry yet?? I'm sure they will eat when they are ready, my 2yr old bredli ate last week.was his 2nd feed in the last 4 months.no matter what I did he wasn't interested , so I'm hoping hes getting back into the swing of it again

 

[Starter]

Thank you, Ron and Porkbones, that is comforting. It is my first year with big adult snakes and I hope we manage everything well. I would be extremely happy if they would breed! But for that, they need energy and strength, so I'd really like to get some nutrition into them. The more the better! My rat breedery has meanwhile grown to about 200 rats... and somewhere I have read that outside of brumation time a python should eat a third of her bodyweight per month - which would be about 2 kg of rats for each! Per month!

 

[Pauls_Pythons]

I'm sure you will have no problem selling any excess rats you have.
As the other guys have said it might just take some time. They have eaten which is a sign nothing is wrong.

Instead of thawing out food for all your animals just try thawing food for 1. If 1 eats you can always thaw some more to try on the others.

Feeding live prey although not illegal is highly frowned upon and certainly not in the best intrest of either the prey or your animals. You can anticipate a barrage of hate about to be unleashed upon you.
If I missunderstood the part about the rats in the boxes I appologise for what I am about to say. Leaving live rats in the enclosure for a week is near on criminal. Not only are these animals living in constant fear but they pose a serious threat to your snakes welfare. It is not unheard of for rats to attack a snake causing serious damage or even death.

 

[Cockney_Red]

Only my Diamonds are still not eating. They are governed by night time temps. Because of the higher daytime temps at the moment, Ihave offered for the last 2 weeks, but as usual they will feed in November...

 

[Trimeresurus]

My large bredlis haven't started eating properly yet either, they took one feed each and refused and more for now, nothing to worry about.

 

[Pythoninfinite]

I'm surprised that no one has commented on the stupidity of your offering a selection of live animals, and even leaving live rats in the enclosure with them. These are adult snakes, they didn't get to the size and age they are by not knowing how or what to eat.

I'm sure someone on APS will be able to find the well publicised photos of what live rats can do to a disinterested snake in a matter of hours.

Please do a bit of research before reaching for the least satisfactory option - if the have been raised and maintained on dead or thawed food for 6-7 years, they will continue to do so. If there's a problem (and there probably isn't) it will be more to do with your management than the type of food you are offering. TRy and learn a lot more before you breed the things...

Jamie

 

[saintanger]

live feeding is dangerous and should be used as a last resort wen the snake has not eaten in over 5 months and is losing condition. a scared rat can seriously injure or even kill your snake. by you stating you leave live rats in with your snake shows you are not experienced enough to even consider live feed. stick to thawed food and be patient, they will eat wen they are ready.

 

[RedFox]

I would be extremely happy if they would breed! But for that, they need energy and strength, so I'd really like to get some nutrition into them. The more the better!

Snakes breed during brumation. If they haven't bred already this year they won't. Maybe next year.

From the way you have worded your posts it sounds like you have them housed in male/female pairs???

As for being active, brumation is different to hibernation. They will still quite happily bask, look for mates and move around. The main difference to the warmer months is they don't waste energy hunting for food.

The book "Keeping and breeding Aussie pythons" by mike swan is a great beginners book for those looking to breed and understand basic husbandry.

 

[PythonLegs]

After having wasted two dozens of frozen feeder animals, I let live baby rabbits and guinea piglets hopple through their enclosure - and the snakes showed no hunting reaction at all. Though, they were watching them with great interest - like us watching TV. For about one week, I have now had 2 or 3 young live rats living in a box at the bottom of each snake enclosure... and they live there happily ever after.

How long were those animals left in the enclosres in probable absolute terror? Hopefully your snakes take the next ones, so they can die in excruciating pain as well.
Pathetic.
You need help, alright.

 

[Jimie]

my mates bredli refused food for 9 months then all of a suden it was like a switch turned on and she eats like a champ so i wouldnt b too worried

 

[kitten_pheonix]

First thing would be to get any live animals out of the enclosure now. They arent living happily. They are just not eating each other, yet. Full grown animals dont always eat weekly.

You would need to provide what you are housing them in, what temperatures they are being and have been kept at. What heating/ basking/ hiding spots they have avaliable. (Just like going to the dr and saying your not well they need more than that)

If they are in m/f pairs in the same enclosure I wpuld house them seperatly as breeding and raising hatchlings requires alot more knowledge and experiance. I have been researching for 3 years and have only just attempted geckos.

Buy keepinga and breeding australian pyhons as its known as the bible to keeping it has everything in it.

 

[ronhalling]

I'm surprised that no one has commented on the stupidity of your offering a selection of live animals, and even leaving live rats in the enclosure with them. These are adult snakes, they didn't get to the size and age they are by not knowing how or what to eat.

I'm sure someone on APS will be able to find the well publicised photos of what live rats can do to a disinterested snake in a matter of hours.

Please do a bit of research before reaching for the least satisfactory option - if the have been raised and maintained on dead or thawed food for 6-7 years, they will continue to do so. If there's a problem (and there probably isn't) it will be more to do with your management than the type of food you are offering. TRy and learn a lot more before you breed the things...

Jamie

I am glad you finally said something about the live food Jamie m8, as you know by now i am not 1 to openly critisize anyone in open forum i leave that to those much more experienced than i, I would rather give advice on subjects i know about than tell anyone what i think is right or wrong, of course live feeding is morally wrong and is frowned upon by most, but i have done it on a couple of occasions when nothing else works, so for me to tell the OP he is wrong for doing it would make me feel like a hypocrite. ....................Ron

 

[paultheo]

they will eat when the temps are correct, get the live food out, and really you need to gain more hands on experience before you start breeding, it can be very work intensive and a lot of things can go wrong if you are not used to dealing with multiple animals. the fact that you came on this forum to ask about feeding tells me you have not had a lot of pet snakes before and i would absolutely encourage you to purchase a good book about keeping and breeding aussie pythons, then buy another once you have memorised that one, the more knowledge you gain the better.

 

[Trimeresurus]

You've made many threads about you being worried about your ADULT pythons not eating, you don't seem to have grasped the concept yet, if you can't deal with adults doing this, how do you plan on raising all these hatchlings?

I don't think you're ready to breed them yet, maybe raise one hatchling so you can better understand the food process they go through as they age.

 

[Pythoninfinite]

I am glad you finally said something about the live food Jamie m8, as you know by now i am not 1 to openly critisize anyone in open forum i leave that to those much more experienced than i, I would rather give advice on subjects i know about than tell anyone what i think is right or wrong, of course live feeding is morally wrong and is frowned upon by most, but i have done it on a couple of occasions when nothing else works, so for me to tell the OP he is wrong for doing it would make me feel like a hypocrite. ....................Ron

Ron, thanks for that, but of course I could likewise be called a hypocrite - I've done all the same things over the decades, and some of the animals in my care have paid a high price for my ignorance. However, in the 60s & 70s when It all began for me, there was no internet and very few relevant books, and keepers were all managing wild-caught stuff because nobody bred anything (thermal cycling was unheard of at that time), so I learned by trial and error. Some of my animals paid the ultimate price - burns, dehydration, mites, RI, stomatitis, amoebiasis - I've experienced and learned about them all over the last 50+ years

These days there are excellent books devoted to Australian reptiles in captivity, there's the internet, there are specialist vets, and there are forums like this... good info is so easy to come by now that unless you've got your head in the sand, you almost can't go wrong - or so I'd like to think. But every now & then a thread like this one comes up, and it just makes me feel that keeping licences are too easy to get, and that some of the people getting snakes these days have absolutely no fundamental understanding of reptiles... they believe that it's just a formula to follow - feed on the 7th hour every Tuesday night etc etc and all will be fine.

Then they are confronted with the simplest of challenges and they just don't know what to do... maybe worse than that - they don't even really know if they have a problem, but they take action which could very well end up killing their snake - when there is no problem at all. And then, to put the cart even further in front of the horse, there's an indication that they want to breed snakes. For goodness sake, if you are worried about getting large adult captive-bred pythons to feed in their first post-brumation season, how are they going to cope with 50 hatchling pythons, the management of which can be stressful for even the most seasoned keeper?

I'm sorry to sound so critical of the OP, but sometimes I just wish people would stop and think of the complexities and consequences of taking on the responsibility of caring for these things, and not just think "everybody else is doing it, it must be easy, so why shouldn't I?" Generally it IS easy, but ONLY if you're armed with knowledge... and a good dash of intuition as well.

Jamie

 

[ronhalling]

Ron, thanks for that, but of course I could likewise be called a hypocrite - I've done all the same things over the decades, and some of the animals in my care have paid a high price for my ignorance. However, in the 60s & 70s when It all began for me, there was no internet and very few relevant books, and keepers were all managing wild-caught stuff because nobody bred anything (thermal cycling was unheard of at that time), so I learned by trial and error. Some of my animals paid the ultimate price - burns, dehydration, mites, RI, stomatitis, amoebiasis - I've experienced and learned about them all over the last 50+ years

These days there are excellent books devoted to Australian reptiles in captivity, there's the internet, there are specialist vets, and there are forums like this... good info is so easy to come by now that unless you've got your head in the sand, you almost can't go wrong - or so I'd like to think. But every now & then a thread like this one comes up, and it just makes me feel that keeping licences are too easy to get, and that some of the people getting snakes these days have absolutely no fundamental understanding of reptiles... they believe that it's just a formula to follow - feed on the 7th hour every Tuesday night etc etc and all will be fine.

Then they are confronted with the simplest of challenges and they just don't know what to do... maybe worse than that - they don't even really know if they have a problem, but they take action which could very well end up killing their snake - when there is no problem at all. And then, to put the cart even further in front of the horse, there's an indication that they want to breed snakes. For goodness sake, if you are worried about getting large adult captive-bred pythons to feed in their first post-brumation season, how are they going to cope with 50 hatchling pythons, the management of which can be stressful for even the most seasoned keeper?

I'm sorry to sound so critical of the OP, but sometimes I just wish people would stop and think of the complexities and consequences of taking on the responsibility of caring for these things, and not just think "everybody else is doing it, it must be easy, so why shouldn't I?" Generally it IS easy, but ONLY if you're armed with knowledge... and a good dash of intuition as well.

Jamie

I know exactly what you mean Jamie me old, I think sometimes we pussyfoot around and sidestep the issues for fear of getting OP's offside and having them leave the forums with the proverbial tail between their legs vowing never to come back again, i think we do this because we have an inherent need to educate and we can't do this in the midst of a mud slinging contest, I fail to see how you could possably be coined a hypocrite because like you said in the bad old days it was all trial and error and if the action you took had unacceptable consequences you moved on armed with more knowledge, i wish i had 1/100th of the knowledge you have forgotten, if i did i would be able to happily call myself an acceptable keeper and if putting someone offside with your comments is a problem for them then they have failed to learn the lesson contained in those comments. I did what i am famous for and did not bother reading to the end of the OP's post, if i had of i would have read the part about the 2 Rats living in the box at the bottom of the enclosure..... I I I just can't seem to find the words to use about how i feel on that bit of info so i might leave it to those who can. ...............................Ron