# spotted python not eating



## Cerberrus (5 mo ago)

Hi there got my first ever snake its a beautiful female spotted python. I have had her for a little over a month now and she is still not eating I have tried every Monday sins I got her and they said they fed her a couple days before I got her. She was previously owned by a worker there and they said she is picky with wean rats only. I have only fed frozen to her so far. I was wondering if I should be worried that she has not eat yet. I upped the temperature from 28c to 31c on her heating mat should because i read online that it is a good temp. I was wondering if I should try feeding her a live rat or just keep up the same routine until she eats.


----------



## wilkinss77 (Sep 23, 2008)

Cerberrus said:


> Hi there got my first ever snake its a beautiful female spotted python. I have had her for a little over a month now and she is still not eating I have tried every Monday sins I got her and they said they fed her a couple days before I got her. She was previously owned by a worker there and they said she is picky with wean rats only. I have only fed frozen to her so far. I was wondering if I should be worried that she has not eat yet. I upped the temperature from 28c to 31c on her heating mat should because i read online that it is a good temp. I was wondering if I should try feeding her a live rat or just keep up the same routine until she eats.


How are you offering the food?


----------



## Cerberrus (5 mo ago)

wilkinss77 said:


> How are you offering the food?


every time i tried different ways every time i have done the good old rat dance then if she had no interest i left it out for a couple hours to see if she would just grab it her self. i have tried hot tap water,kinda hot water i have tried warming the head up with a blow dryer.


----------



## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Can you post up an image of your set up. You mentioned heat mat. Is this the main form of heating? - You may find using a ceramic heater on pulse stat to provide an ambient air temp of 30 - 32c at the warm end under the heater is better as heat mats don't heat the air.


----------



## NickN (11 mo ago)

Mine took a while to get dialled in to what (hopefully) is now reliable feeding.
What seemed to ultimately work was a combination of:
1) making sure ambient air temperature at the warm end of vivarium was 31-32 degrees C, with a basking surface a few degrees higher than that. Mine didn't feed properly when in a tub with heat mat at 32 but in a room where ambient was 20-22.
2) offering the defrosted rodent "dry" and heated up with a hair dryer, rather than wet using hot water.
3) allowing it to settle in its new home for a few weeks.
4) placing the food in its hide and leaving it. Although the last two feeds that has not been necessary, he now strikes and takes it from tongs.

Now all snakes are different and what works for me might not work for you, but in any case, that's what I did, thanks to some good advice from this forum.


----------



## Cerberrus (5 mo ago)

Malc said:


> Can you post up an image of your set up. You mentioned heat mat. Is this the main form of heating? - You may find using a ceramic heater on pulse stat to provide an ambient air temp of 30 - 32c at the warm end under the heater is better as heat mats don't heat the air.


the heating pad is under the left hideout


----------



## Cerberrus (5 mo ago)

NickN said:


> Mine took a while to get dialled in to what (hopefully) is now reliable feeding.
> What seemed to ultimately work was a combination of:
> 1) making sure ambient air temperature at the warm end of vivarium was 31-32 degrees C, with a basking surface a few degrees higher than that. Mine didn't feed properly when in a tub with heat mat at 32 but in a room where ambient was 20-22.
> 2) offering the defrosted rodent "dry" and heated up with a hair dryer, rather than wet using hot water.
> ...


aaa i see have not placed it directly into the hide yet but one time i did come back into the room and some how the mouse was just laying on top of her and she did not care


----------



## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

How was the snake previously housed when it was feeding?


----------



## Cerberrus (5 mo ago)

Malum Argenteum said:


> How was the snake previously housed when it was feeding?


at the store they had her in a bucket but i did not ask the pervious owner


----------



## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

A bucket, huh?

I ask because I've had a small handful of people buy animals (snakes usually, but I recall one gecko too) from me that were feeding fine for me but wouldn't eat for the new owner. One reason seemed to trace to moving the animal from my housing (tubs, and not large ones) into a glass cage of some sort (typically an Exo Terra). Only after fully covering the glass did the animals return to normal feeding routines (one I had to take back; the animal ate ravenously upon return). If you could reproduce the former housing you could troubleshoot that variable, but apparently that's not an option here. Not knowing much about an animal's history makes caring for them really challenging sometimes.

Often, a heat mat alone simply isn't suitable heating in a glass cage. No idea how _Anteresia_ deal with glass cages or subpar heating setups, though, but a lot of snakes seem to better in tubs or PVC enclosures in my experience.

The other issue I sometimes find is that a snake simply doesn't like the taste/smell/something else about prey from a new source. A couple times I've had to direct keepers to simply get a prey item from a different source, and that worked. Some snakes just don't like rodents from some sources, and there doesn't seem to be a pattern to which they prefer. Might be worth a shot to get a rodent from somewhere else, or try a freshly prekilled one (permissible in the US; hope it is OK to mention here).


----------



## Cerberrus (5 mo ago)

Malum Argenteum said:


> A bucket, huh?
> 
> I ask because I've had a small handful of people buy animals (snakes usually, but I recall one gecko too) from me that were feeding fine for me but wouldn't eat for the new owner. One reason seemed to trace to moving the animal from my housing (tubs, and not large ones) into a glass cage of some sort (typically an Exo Terra). Only after fully covering the glass did the animals return to normal feeding routines (one I had to take back; the animal ate ravenously upon return). If you could reproduce the former housing you could troubleshoot that variable, but apparently that's not an option here. Not knowing much about an animal's history makes caring for them really challenging sometimes.
> 
> ...


do you think trying a live one will maybe work?


----------



## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

I don't keep the species, so I don't know their preferences. If the snake was eating FT before, then there isn't much reason to believe that it would need live; the prekilled would just be a different smell that the snake might prefer.

If it was feeding on live before, then I'd feed a couple live meals and then begin to switch it over to PK and then to FT as soon as possible. Personally, I like to get everything onto FT or at worst PK, if possible.


----------



## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Cerberrus said:


> the heating pad is under the left hideout
> View attachment 366162


Theres the problem. 
Heat mats are often used because they are cheap. However they are far from ideal in most cases. 
Anteresia pythons come from areas that are rather warm, and need a warm ambient air temperature. A mat isn't going to give that. And any heat produced is flying straight up and out of the mesh lid.
You will be far better off replacing the mat with an overhead heater housed in a reflector dome. This can be in the form of a spot lamp, as they do not need overnight heat. You will need a dimming thermostat to control the heat from the lamp.


----------



## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

Radiant heat panels are pretty popular in the US; are they in the UK? They enable a constant overnight temp -- or a partial temp drop with a night drop thermostat -- which is a practice that we tend to use here with apparent good results (not saying your 'heat off at night' suggestion isn't reasonable).


----------



## Cerberrus (5 mo ago)

ian14 said:


> Theres the problem.
> Heat mats are often used because they are cheap. However they are far from ideal in most cases.
> Anteresia pythons come from areas that are rather warm, and need a warm ambient air temperature. A mat isn't going to give that. And any heat produced is flying straight up and out of the mesh lid.
> You will be far better off replacing the mat with an overhead heater housed in a reflector dome. This can be in the form of a spot lamp, as they do not need overnight heat. You will need a dimming thermostat to control the heat from the lamp.


oo okay they told me at my place that the mat would be more then enough but i guess not lol. so i should buy the over the head lamps and attach them to a thermostat I have this thermostat would it work?


----------



## Cerberrus (5 mo ago)

Malum Argenteum said:


> Radiant heat panels are pretty popular in the US; are they in the UK? They enable a constant overnight temp -- or a partial temp drop with a night drop thermostat -- which is a practice that we tend to use here with apparent good results (not saying your 'heat off at night' suggestion isn't reasonable).


my room temp in her room tends to stay at 25c and i have the mat at 31c


----------



## ian14 (Jan 2, 2008)

Malum Argenteum said:


> Radiant heat panels are pretty popular in the US; are they in the UK? They enable a constant overnight temp -- or a partial temp drop with a night drop thermostat -- which is a practice that we tend to use here with apparent good results (not saying your 'heat off at night' suggestion isn't reasonable).


Not really, no. 
The alternative for 24 hour heat is a ceramic bulb. Using a decent digital dimmer, you can then programme the thermostat so that you still have heat overnight, but with a drop in temperature as required.


----------



## Malc (Oct 27, 2009)

Malum Argenteum said:


> Radiant heat panels are pretty popular in the US; are they in the UK? They enable a constant overnight temp -- or a partial temp drop with a night drop thermostat -- which is a practice that we tend to use here with apparent good results (not saying your 'heat off at night' suggestion isn't reasonable).


The norm in the UK is for a wooden vivarium with glass front sliding doors. The heating provided by either a ceramic element or light such as a halogen lamp. These are controlled via pulse or dimming stats respectively and if required a timer used to give a night time drop. Some hobby breeders will use rack systems with heat mats / strips / cable to give a localised hot spot, but run the HCAV to maintain an ambient air temp of the room of around 28c

Glass enclosures are used, but no so much for snakes.


----------



## LiasisUK (Sep 30, 2019)

Have you tried offering the prey hot and placing it in its hide and leaving it in with the snake over night?


----------



## Zincubus (Sep 6, 2010)

Try the hairdryer feeding method !!

I’ll PM you the details now 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro


----------



## wilkinss77 (Sep 23, 2008)

ian14 said:


> Theres the problem.
> Heat mats are often used because they are cheap. However they are far from ideal in most cases.
> Anteresia pythons come from areas that are rather warm, and need a warm ambient air temperature. A mat isn't going to give that. And any heat produced is flying straight up and out of the mesh lid.
> You will be far better off replacing the mat with an overhead heater housed in a reflector dome. This can be in the form of a spot lamp, as they do not need overnight heat. You will need a dimming thermostat to control the heat from the lamp.


My spotted python is on a statted mat & he feeds fine every Sunday. In fact I have to mind my fingers as he leaps up like an evil Jack-in-the-box!


----------



## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

Malc said:


> The norm in the UK is for a wooden vivarium with glass front sliding doors.


Like the PVC vivs with sliding glass doors here, I think. Great enclosures.

One advantage to the RHPs is that the surface can be safely contacted by snakes without burn risk. Good to know what the regional differences in practices are, at any rate.


----------



## Malum Argenteum (5 mo ago)

Cerberrus said:


> oo okay they told me at my place that the mat would be more then enough but i guess not lol. so i should buy the over the head lamps and attach them to a thermostat I have this thermostat would it work?


I haven't used that model so can't say. Heat lamps are dangerous enough that I personally would only be comfortable with a stat with built in safety features, such as a Herpstat (US product, I assume is available in Canada). It will shut off the power if it gets readings (power is on, but probe temp doesn't maintain) that suggest the probe has been bumped loose or the lamp has left its usual position.


----------



## Swindinian (May 4, 2020)

Malum Argenteum said:


> Like the PVC vivs with sliding glass doors here, I think. Great enclosures.
> 
> One advantage to the RHPs is that the surface can be safely contacted by snakes without burn risk. Good to know what the regional differences in practices are, at any rate.


Some radiant heat panels in UK definitely get too hot to allow direct contact. I had a slight contact burn whilst trialling one.


----------

