rosey boa not eating

Hi. My boyfriend has a baby rosey boa that he has had since Nov. and he has not been able to get it to eat. The place that he got it from said that it had eaten a f/t pinkie a few days before he bought it from them. It has never eaten for him yet. At first, we both thought that it was in brumation because of the colder weather and that's why it wasn't eating. Now, that it's starting to get warmer outside, we think that it's not brumation, but it's still not eating. It has also not even shed yet in the time that he's had it. He has taken it back to where he got it from a couple of times to see if they could get it to eat, but they can't either. They have offered to do a trade for it for him, but he doesn't want to do it yet, he wants to make sure that he tries everything he can to help this snake to eat. She looks healthy and everything, she's not skinny, she's active. She is starting to loose a little weight. The tank is a 20 gallon terriarium with aspen bedding with an undertank heater and a heat lamp. No light source. The humidity is about 30%. The tank never gets below 81 degrees. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Did you try a live pinkie?

What are the "hot spot" temps? Is the undertank heater on a thermostat? Does he have hides? Are you handling him often? And, as Steve said, have you tried offering live?

There are many reasons why your rosy may not be eating, and if it is a baby, 4 months is a LONG time to go without eating. And a baby wouldn't typically be brumating, either.

Babies do often brumate. With some of the mexican rosys, the babies may even refuse food, brumate without eating anything and wake up hungry in the spring.

What size meals are you offering? Are you offering live? Sometimes rosys prefer rodents with hair. So, if your snake can handle it, try a larger prey item like a large fuzzy or small crawler. Offer live too as these are more likely to illicit a feeding response.

Also, you may want to consider putting her in something smaller until you can get her eating. If she's still pretty small, I'd recommend putting her in one of those ~ 6" x 8" critter keepers with the back 1/4 over the UTH and ~ 2" of aspen. Keep her in it for a few days to let her settle in and then drop in a live, furred mouse of appropriate size. In this set-up they tend to spill water bowls, so it's best to offer it and remove. I'm picturing a small baby (1ft range), if yours is bigger you may want to use a larger enclosure. Once you get her eating well, you can put her back in the larger tank.

Sometimes rosys are just wierd. I gave a friend one of my babies last fall after it had eaten two meals for me. I'm not sure if it ate at all for him and he has a lot of snake experience (more than me). It seemed to maintain its weight, his set-up was good etc. We figured it was brumating, but when he warmed it up this spring it still wouldn't eat. I took it back today to see if I could get it feeding, I left it in its little kritter keeper since I've had good luck getting snakes eating in these little cages and dropped in a live crawler. Within less than a minute it constricted and ate it

The only thing I can think of is that the crawler may have been larger / more appealing than the mice he'd been offering so try to offer the largest prey item your snake could easily handle. The furrier the better. The prey girth should be at least equal the girth of your snake or slightly thicker.

-Alice

yes, he has already tried to feed her live. She just didn't seem to be interested in it. He's just been trying to feed her pinkies as far as I know. We'll try using larger prey with the kritter keeper. That sounds like a good idea. Alice-what happened with your friend sounds like what is wrong with his rosey. It just has everyone scratching their heads trying to figure out how to get her to eat. He has had snakes since he was like 10 and I was just researching stuff online and couldn't find anything. The person that he got the rosey from even went to college for reptiles/amphibians and has a degree and couldn't figure it out either! I'll let you know if it works. It sounds like it would. We just knew that she was obviously out of brumation now because everytime that we take her out, she wraps around a finger and squeezes and tries to unhinge her jaw, like she's hungry and wants to eat, but when we put her in with a mouse, she's not interested. Thanks for everything!

Keep us posted on how it goes. I've read numerous reports of rosys refusing pinkies, but accepting larger furrier prey.

Good luck,
Alice

Hopefully your rosy is not a 'failure to thrive' case.
There are just instances of rosies passing for no good reason.

I've got some bad news...the rosey didn't make it. She died the other day.

I'm sorry she didn't make it It sounds like you did everything you could for her.

-Alice

We did try what we could for her. We tried what you said with the kritter keeper, but that didn't work either. They just decided that it was a case of failure to thrive.