Fasting time?

I bought her a couple years ago as an adult already so age is unknown - but 2007 (her first winter with us - we are in UK) she fasted and brumated from November to February. This year (end 2008) she didn't do this so I thought that was great but now she hasn't eaten for 6 weeks and I wondered if it was late brumation or if she might be thinking of breeding more than eating.

It could be her clock is just off, or... Do you have her in a place where natural light can be seen? Sometimes the photo period is what brings on the fasting. If you have her in a room where you control the light you may try bumping up the amount of time the lights are on and see if that helps.

Thinking of breeding usually is more a male behavior versus a female.

Thank you for your reply.

She is in a room where natural light comes in (from the side). The only thing I have just thought of which may be relevant is that I moved her viv at the very end of last year from a room which is indeed lighter and her viv used to be placed on top of a monitor's viv overnight.

She now has just her bulb for daytime which gets switched off at night and the temps get down to 70 whereas previously the overnight under viv temps wouldn't get lower than about 80. Maybe this is what could have triggered it.

She's actually due into the vets for an appointment tomorrow as a friend of mine who runs a reptile store was over yesterday, and when he opened her mouth he said it looked a bit paler than normal but that it might be because she hadn't eaten for a while.

I am hoping the non-eating is just due to the move though - I am going to move her viv back today.

Been a while since I first posted, but took her to vets and glad I did! I had never noticed it but vet immediately saw she had a bit of an abscess on her cloacal gland (well in cloaca area) so he drained it out and looks like the non-feeding could also have been precipitated by her having a cut inside her mouth. It was healing when vet saw it - don't know what she could have caught it on (maybe a sharp bit of aspen or maybe a claw or something from rodent) but apparently hoggies have very sensitive mouths compared to other snakes.

She is now on antibiotics and anti-inflammatories - if the antibiotics don't work (he sent sample off to lab so we've got the right one) he said he'll have to put her out and do flushing - poor little thing

Funnily enough after her first vet visit she took a fluff when she got back but hasn't eaten since