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Originally Posted by atroxman
I purchased a 7 foot venomoid king cobra from Carolina Reptiles back in November and she still has not eaten for me. I provide educational shows to schools etc., so a venomoid is a must. Se is a healthy and active snake, she just refuses to eat. I had Bruce at Carolina Reptile e-mail me a picture of her eating before I bought her, she was supposedly eating mice. I've offered her a few different types of pre-killed snakes with no luck. I would hate to offer her a live feeder snake and the feeder gets lucky and hurts my girl. She is a Farley aggressive snake hooding and striking regularly so this makes tease feeding a little hard, she focuses on me and not the food. She is a bit thin so I've force feed her twice to try to maintain her weight.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what to do; I don't want to loose her
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My post is probably going to sound redundant, as Tanith did a superb job of both chastising you for getting a venomoid hack job, but at the same time giving you the neccesary information to try and save the snake.
Looks like you found out the hard way what quite a few of Bruce's snakes end up like...non-feeding, unhealthy, traumatized venomoids that don't end up surviving that long (hopefully yours will be an exception to this "rule").
As Tanith said, wild caught snakes are already under incredible stress (which is why a lot of wild caught snakes do not feed right away in captivity) in the first place. King cobras are notorius for being problematic captives when fresh out of the bush. And then, you throw in the fact that it was thrown in the fridge for an hour or so so that it was immobilized, strapped down with pieces of duct tape (or whatever they use), and cruedly cut open, had pieces of it's anatomy ripped out of it, sown back up with cheap, non-medical sutures (there is a pic of a king done by Bruce that demonstrates his sewing technique, the snake died, it was sold with the stitches still in it!), and then thrown in a shipping box and flown across the country. Tell me, you wouldn't really want to sit down for a snack after all that either, would you? I doubt that snake was in captivity longer than a few weeks before ol' Brucey took the blade to it.
Again, as Tanith said, venomous snakes can be displayed intact provided you display them in secure, escape proof caging (which is what you should be keeping them in anyway). Children shouldn't get used to the idea of touching venomous snakes. You don't need to use the "shock and awe" approach of education where you pull out your mutilated snake so kids can go "oooh" and "ahhhh" as you parade the poor animal around.
I'm sure you mean well. However, venomoids in this country are much more often than not performed on by unexperienced, unlicenced, unqualified butchers in their basements or garages. Snakes are hardy creatures, so some do survive in the long term, but most only make it a few weeks/months. Still impressive, considering the amount of trauma and stress they endure at the hands of their tormentors (the butchers).
Learn a lesson from this. Don't buy venomoids. If you MUST buy one (which I can't figure out why, if using venomoids is that imperative to your educational shows, drop venomous from your education shows, and let someone willing to use intact animals do it, there are plenty of them in TX), then at least get a licensed, experienced vet (not all vets know what they are doing when it comes to venomoid surgery, and most won't do it anyway) to do it, so that the snake is at least anesthisized, operated on in a sterile environment, and given pain management medication afterwards. But don't support Bruce and his hackshop.
I wouldn't buy a feeder mouse from those fools, much less a snake.