It's about time

they resumed feeding!
Background stories:
a) I went away for a few days in early June of '05 (after managing food/water intake in a futile attempt to prevent returning to messy cages). Sure enough, my male yellow anaconda was sitting in filth and sounding a bit raspy when I got home. I cleaned him off, soaked him, and put him in a fresh tub - and few days later gave him a thorough going over. Mouth clear, nares patent, no noises - no problem. Except that he refused to eat...and continued to refuse until yesterday (well, a day and a half ago). From 05/16/05 to 02/09/06, he refused all offerings (f/t and live) - to include rats, guinea pigs, gerbils, weanling rabbits, chicks. I did force feed him a smallish medium rat on two occasions.
b) One of my females, presumed to be gravid (some of you may remember me posting about her last summer), had first refused food on July 21, 2005. Figuring she was a only week or two from parturition, I wasn't particularly concerned...except no babies ever came. And she just never bothered to eat again - rats, guinea pigs, or rabbits. Tonite (last night, whatever - 2/10), she ate like she had never stopped...came right over to the door when I opened it (just like she used to) and snatched the f/t rats up like they were candy.

Admittedly, I had been at a bit of a loss...for ideas and warm cage space. I had dropped the temps in my snake room for breeding, and my plastic cages have heat tape - wired in series, of course - so I didn't have a convenient means of keeping them warm...so I cooled them. Since I kind of needed all of my available cages for breeders, I struggled with the idea then put the male in with the female. I hesitated to do this because I felt that neither of them was in suitable condition & didn't want to risk breeding activity. Anyway, my schedule being what it was, I just got around to separating everything over the past 2 weeks. These anacondas were the last, and they both ate within 24 hrs of being separated. Now, if she will just cough up the babies she flaked on last summer, lol (For the record, I didn't notice anything even resembling courtship or copulation with this pair. And I don't expect babies from this pair, but stranger things have happened)

Harold, that is interesting. I have a female Suriname Boa at 5.5 feet long, that went on a semi fast for the last year. After trying everything with her cage in temps, humidity and such, I eventually moved her into new a new change. Still no change, she would only eat once every few months, over the last year she has eaten only about 6 times. She even escaped from the cage. All together she was housed in 4 different cages with a slight difference in each cage. Keep in mind she visited the vet a few times and was declared in perfect health.

This last move for her was in with a pair of Surinam's that showed no interest in breeding, so I figured I can work with them next year. After two weeks, this Suriname went on a feeding frenzy I have never seen in a snake before. All I can think of was she was lonely. Now I have three snakes all eating great with no disire to breed...Argh!

I was really getting frustrated with the male (in part due to the fact that I have another female...I ended up purchasing another male for her. He looks ok, but seems to have this affinity for biting, lol). He has lost a fair amount of weight (big shock), but should recover fairly easily as long as he continues feeding. I was hoping that the cooling phase would have some impact, and (thankfully) it did.
I will say that this was not a totally new experience for me, as I have had yellows do this before (hence the relative lack of concern), but I am still glad its over. The last time, I had to use caiman scented rats to get the thing restarted...and I don't have a caiman to pre-chew the rats anymore