This is REALLY annoying!!!

[Reptilefreak95]

ok, so my 2 year old darwin all of a sudden hates all of his food and WON'T EAT and more so, whenever he does eat, he doesnt strike! X( its annoying and frustrating cuz nearly all my food goes to waste! Does anybody know how i can get him to eat and strike his food???? any help would be appreciated

he has always hated rats, but loves quails and chickens, but i've tried him on a rabbit bub, and he cant eat it properly, he doesnt start at the head and it buggers him up, i usually trail him from a quail, a rat or something, but now he doesnt like quails and wont feed, its really annoying

 

[SteveNT]

His choice.

 

[benjamind2010]

Welcome to the club!

 

[Reptilefreak95]

god it sucks. so bad

 

[jacks-pythons]

my woma always eats but sometimes doesnt strike. when he doesnt i play a little tugawar with him till he raps aaround and fights for it. nothing major just so he thinks its trying to get away. after a few times he started striking again.

 

[benjamind2010]

I have had trouble with my male woma, 3rd rat so far, no eating...I think it could be the cool temperatures we've been having, summer is normally a lot warmer than it has been. I hear a cold snap can put off a snake eating for a long time, perhaps months. He shouldn't lose much condition even if he goes off food for a few months, but you should keep trying.

 

[andysnakes]

y

this is quite simple........ if the snake does not want to eat, then dont feed it for a while. i dont understand why people get all fixated on there snake refusing a feed, it will eat when its hungry and you continually trying to make it eat is just wasting your money . this is what seperates the fine line between herpetologists and pet owners

 

[veenarm]

Yes, because most people think its abnormal for your pet to not eat.... My diamond went with out food for 5months this year and he's only a year old! (His choice...)

But I did find out if you annoy the crap out of them with the food (hit them with it gently esp over the mid body) they get aggressive and take food. Since knowing this trick they haven't gone hungry, they are just very lazy when it comes ot eating.

 

[Snake_Whisperer]

Agree with Andy and veenarm. There seems to be some hysteria going on lately about snakes not eating. It has been cold lately (at least up here in Qld), perfectly normal for a snake not to eat when it's cold. I'm getting the impression that many don't realize this simple fact? I can appreciate that if your animal keeping experience has previously been limited to endotherms, that it may be hard to wrap your head around the fact that these guys (snakes) can and will go months without food if they choose to, with no ill effect. Take a few deep breaths, and stop trying to force your animals to do what you THINK they should be doing, and let them do what they KNOW they can do. Trust me, when your snake gets hungry again, you'll know it! I have a couple of young animals here that are being absolute pains in the bum at the moment, but with a bit of gentle coaxing (IE using the system previouslky described be veenarm above), they will almost always take the feed eventually.

 

[abnrmal91]

I will add whilst hitting them with the food item does work it's not something that should be done every week trying to get it to eat. If its done too regularly it just stresses them out which makes the problem worse.

 

[Snake_Whisperer]

I will add whilst hitting them with the food item does work it's not something that should be done every week trying to get it to eat. If its done too regularly it just stresses them out which makes the problem worse.

An excellent point mate. Coaxing a difficult animal to eat is not an everyday or even every other day thing. If you are getting negative results from weekly attempts, stretch it out to 10 days. If that doesn't get you anywhere, give it a couple of weeks, and so on. While aggravating your animal to strike can be, and often is successful, too frequently will work against you in the long run.

 

[-Katana-]

I have a male woma that is a pain in the butt as well.
I can offer the food item and dangle it in front of his nose while he .....thinks about it.
He'll grab it..gently, and then BAM wrap but then goes on to eat it bum first.

I possibly have house plants that are smarter than he is.

Every household has their problem child.

 

[user 23122]

i have an adult male stimmie that has just started eating proper meals again after two years fasting in that time he has probably eaten 3 mice was definetely on the lean side but didnt lose really any condition and he is now powering along nicely on a small rats every week

 

[Daniel_Penrith]

Its annoying when i wake up and check on my herps and my pygmy mulga monitor is running around with an egg in his mouth!! Dam second time, i should have learnt from the first time it happen lol

 

[SteveNT]

Get a bhp. It will inhale anything the others dont want to eat

 

[John_lisa]

i had a jungle that wouldn eat and i left him for weeks try again and he took but it did seem like an on going thing but he chose when he wonted to eat it was a pain along with the fact he wonted to eat who ever went near the cage lol

i also have a bredli atm that seems very dopy he takes his food great raps around it perfectly but seems to "kill" it so to speak then let got and look around like he's looking for the head that was just in his mouth on the one time he took eat bum first not sure why he does it all i know is i read once its not good to take it back words

lol steveNT thats what i do with my jungle if one of the others wont eat i just give it to him 99% of the time my jungle takes it lol just sucks if hes the one not eating lol

if i was ur reptilefreak95 i wouldn even stress about it snakes can go a long time without food leave it for a few weeks and try again best of luck

 

[Chris1]

lol, that worked with my first 7, then i got a darwin hatchy last year that i tried that with and she bolted,..left the pinky in over night and she wouldnt touch it. tried again the second week, she sniffed for ages, when i tried to get her to take it, bolted again. Bugger.

next meal, (i waited 2 weeks, didnt hassle her at all in that time) i crawled into her room and opened the click clack as quietly as i could, at midnight, gently placed the mouse in front of her cave and crept back out, 20 mins later it was gone,..it worked every time since.

in the meantime ive been able to wean her off that habit to taking food from my hand and more recently she started taking food out of her cage hanging from chairs like all the others,..

its all about patience, and trying different techniques till u find one that works.

Yes, because most people think its abnormal for your pet to not eat.... My diamond went with out food for 5months this year and he's only a year old! (His choice...)

But I did find out if you annoy the crap out of them with the food (hit them with it gently esp over the mid body) they get aggressive and take food. Since knowing this trick they haven't gone hungry, they are just very lazy when it comes ot eating.

 

[Herpaderpa]

lol I love that you crawled into the room Chris

john_danielle... my biggest snake does the same thing... he is very enthusiastic about taking his food but he must spend 10 minutes checking it all over first and making 100% sure he is taking it by the head before he will start to eat it. All the others have finished and are resting up on their heat spots by the time he has decided he will begin to down the rat. My diamond however, doesn't matter which way it goes down, she wont let go of that food ever... where ever her mouth lands is where she starts eating.

I got a little darwin recently who literally chews on the back legs before he decides to down the rat. Little weirdo LOL

 

[John_lisa]

lol my lil diamond is like that grabs it and just downs it my gf (danielle) feeds the diamond and the GTP by the time the diamond has taking it 2nd fuzzy the GTP is just starting to down its food lol weird how different some snakes can be ay

my jungle has only just started taking his hopper rats straight away for a while i had to give him a mouse with the rat just so he would eat it thinking its a mouse not a rat now he takes it with out the mouse was a pain for a while lol

like chris1 said its just gonna be a matter of what way works seems to me from reading this thread alone there is many different ways a snake will take his/her food

maybe others if they read this can share the weird ways they have had to feed there snakes give ya some ways to try maybe

anyway hope u work it out best of luck