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Jamaican Boas Breeding

Feeding update:

All holdbacks have been offered quail chicks. I'm not quite sure they're ready, but the chicks aren't considerably wider than some of the larger chick thighs, and the thighs have been becoming incrementally less obvious in the belly, so to speak. We will see if they elect to eat, but if not, they have all eaten every week for some time, so I'm not overly concerned about missing a week.

The three non-scented pinkie eaters were fed non-scented pinkies
The other nine pinkie eaters were fed chick head-scented pinkies
T3 was offered a f/t anole and a pinkie. Next week, perhaps, I will try the scented pinkie alone

Also, it appears that T1 ate two anoles last night. Clearly, T1 has eaten, but as for the idea of two (as opposed to just one), I have been checking daily and am certain there were three anoles in the cage yesterday, and this morning I can only find one. This was day three of the experiment, so it appears that they are willing to eat quite often. I will continue the experiment for a little while longer, but if this rate of consumption continues, I will likely stop soon, so as to prevent fatty liver disease, or other problems caused by overfeeding.

I will update tomorrow with feeding results.
 
Hello from T2's new owner! For the sake of providing as much information as possible (with Chris already doing a fantastic job on that front), I'll try to post updates on T2, now known as Harper.

I've been trying to leave him alone as much as possible since bringing him home, but I did to a quick photoshoot yesterday before weighing him (15.3 g). I offered him an anole-scented f/t pinky Monday night, but he didn't eat. Not a big concern, as I had been warned of their temperamental appetites, but I also wonder if having presented it on the floor of the enclosure may have been a mistake. I'm going to provide a higher feeding station in the future and see if that has better results. If not, I may have to invest in some frozen anoles as that seemed to do the trick for this little guy in the past.

Super excited to be working with this species - thanks again, Chris.
 
Congrats Gillian on the new pet, and being so supportive of the information sharing effort Chris has led! I hope the little guy eats for you soon, and look forward to your progress reports.
 
As a supporter of unlimited meals, I and my belly hereby protest on behalf of the good T1 and his/her expanding appetite. ;-)

Other than that, great report!
 
GillianC said:
Hello from T2's new owner! For the sake of providing as much information as possible (with Chris already doing a fantastic job on that front), I'll try to post updates on T2, now known as Harper.

I've been trying to leave him alone as much as possible since bringing him home, but I did to a quick photoshoot yesterday before weighing him (15.3 g). I offered him an anole-scented f/t pinky Monday night, but he didn't eat. Not a big concern, as I had been warned of their temperamental appetites, but I also wonder if having presented it on the floor of the enclosure may have been a mistake. I'm going to provide a higher feeding station in the future and see if that has better results. If not, I may have to invest in some frozen anoles as that seemed to do the trick for this little guy in the past.

Super excited to be working with this species - thanks again, Chris.
Click to expand...

Thanks for chiming in, Gillian. I'm glad to know that you'll be continuing our updates on Harper, as information regarding transition to new habitats is something I likely won't be able to provide on my own. I look forward to hearing your updates.
 
Snakesitter said:
As a supporter of unlimited meals, I and my belly hereby protest on behalf of the good T1 and his/her expanding appetite. ;-)

Other than that, great report!
Click to expand...

Well, the unlimited meal plan is starting to concern me, haha. T1 ate yet another anole last night, and is looking EXCEPTIONALLY full. I have read that these guys have a propensity for overeating, so this experiment may need to be canceled early.
 
Feeding update results:

Not a great night. Only one of the holdbacks ate the quail chick (holdback #5), so I'm thinking I jumped the gun on that one. We will be going back to chick thighs for at least another couple of months.

In addition, only two of the nine scented pinkie eaters ate their scented pinkies. There could be some issues with the pinkies themselves, as I had stepped up to larger pinkies this week, and that may have interfered with reception rates. We will try again next week with small pinkies and see.

Of the three non-scented pinkie eaters, the same two ate this week, and the same one as last week declined again. I will try a non-scented again next week, but if that is not taken, will be putting that one back on scented, at least for a short period.

The two, stubborn chick-thigh eaters ate their chick thighs.

T1 ate another anole (night 4)

T3 ate the f/t anole, but passed on the pinkie.
 
It appears as though T1 has eaten yet another anole last night. This brings the tally to:

12/21 - Anole #1 eaten
12/24 - Anoles 2&3 eaten
12/25 - Anole #4 eaten
12/26 - Anole #5 eaten

This is quite more than I had anticipated. I am going to suspend this experiment, at least temporarily, and may try again to do something similar after T1 has had some time to digest.
 
Feeding update for this week:

All holdbacks were offered the usual thighs
The two stubborn non-holdbacks were also offered the usual thighs
the scented-pinkie eaters were offered pinkies that had been scented with chick thighs and heads (and I made an effort to squeeze some of the heads to increase the amount of juice that was scenting the pinkies)
Of the three unscented pinkie-eaters, the two reliable ones were offered unscented pinkies, but the one that has refused the last few times was offered a scented pinkie to see if that puts him back on feed
T1 is on a break after consuming 5 anoles in as many days
T3 has been moved to a similar experiment where he was placed in a screen cage with abundant anoles to see how often he feeds, how many anoles are eaten at a time, and how long it will take to consume all 12.

I will update with results tomorrow.
 
Not the greatest night

All holdbacks and the two stubborn thigh-eaters ate with no issues
Of the two that were fed unscented pinkies, only one ate. Both of these have been eating regularly
The former unscented pinkie eater did not eat, despite being given a scented pinkie this time
Of the scented pinkie eaters, only 3 out of the 8 ate their scented pinkie
T3 ate one anole on Night 1.

I'm not quite sure what happened to the eating rate from two weeks ago. It could be a number of things. This could be a natural, winter slowdown, as my adults have also stopped eating. The problem with that theory, however, is that the adults have had their heat shut off and their lighting decreased, and no such measures have been taken for the babies. In addition, all of the chick thigh eaters and anole eaters are still eating normally. It could be that the season has caused them to be somewhat less hungry, and therefore less likely to take an non-preferred food, but I don't know that this is the case.

They could also still be pouting about last week. The larger pinkies (which they may or may not have attempted to consume) could have caused them some stress, which I have thoroughly documented will impact appetite. If this is the case, I would expect most of them to come back around next week.

The third theory is that some minor change in the routine either helped some of them to switch up to scented pinkies and has failed to be replicated, or that some minor change now is preventing them from eating. Possible issues (things I haven't really been tracking) are:

Feeding order
Exact temperature of food
Exact time of day
Rodent supplier

Not sure what the issue is, but as the troublemaker group has shown, these guys are more than capable of going a considerable time without eating with no ill effects, so I am not in any rush to make changes. I will try this week's regimen again next week and see if there is any improvement. If not, then I will start cycling chick thighs back into the rotation and see if that improves the response rate.
 
interesting stuff going on.....

I think we worry too much in general about regular eating schedules. After all, in the wild they don't choose how often to eat, they just snap something up when the opportunity arises, so I think the natural eating pattern is much more "gorge and fast" than we allow for in captivity.

Having said that I know how anxiety-arousing a non eating baby is, and it's surely not a coincidence that so far it's just the pinkie eaters.

I'm sure you're on the right track by offering food and not worrying too much if they take some time off. Looking forward to further updates. :thumbsup:
 
Helenthereef said:
interesting stuff going on.....

I think we worry too much in general about regular eating schedules. After all, in the wild they don't choose how often to eat, they just snap something up when the opportunity arises, so I think the natural eating pattern is much more "gorge and fast" than we allow for in captivity.

Having said that I know how anxiety-arousing a non eating baby is, and it's surely not a coincidence that so far it's just the pinkie eaters.

I'm sure you're on the right track by offering food and not worrying too much if they take some time off. Looking forward to further updates. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...


All good points, Helen. That's part of the reason why I'm doing the anole experiments. I want to see what kind of feeding rate we see when the snake gets to choose. They've already shown they can go a few months without feeding and still have the strength and function to start up again, so I try not to get too stressed out about missed feedings.
 
Well now, this is a very interesting development in the T3 anole experiment. Today, T3 is noticeably full. Clearly, he has eaten more. Where there were 11 live anoles in the cage yesterday, now I can only count 8. What's more, there are two dead ones lying on the bottom of the cage, and appear to have been rather clearly killed by constriction (there is a clear bend in them in the middle, and they are both upside down. I'm not sure if this means they were killed in the process of constricting another (I have seen the adults constrict multiple food items while in the process of eating one) or if the additional kills occurred after T3 had already eaten, and T3 chose to simply leave them after constriction. I have also seen similar behavior from some adults, most notably Montego, the sire, who will sometimes strike and constrict a food item, then discard it because he is either full or simply off feed. Of course, there is a third option that they just chose this particular night to die of some other cause, but that seems somewhat unlikely. I will monitor the next few days carefully to try to ascertain what is happening here. I have attached photos of T3's giant belly and the anoles.

Night 1- Anole 1 eaten
Night 2- Anole 2 eaten, two additional dead
 

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My little carpet python refused f/t for several weeks after I brought it home, so I finally drove 1.5 hours to get live feeder mice. First I offered a fuzzy, which the python took and constricted, then finally abandoned after a couple minutes of examining the carcass. Then I offered a hopper, which it also took and constricted, then finally swallowed. Since then I haven't had any problems feeding f/t hoppers several times, and the last feeding was a live fuzzy since my breeding mice are now producing.
I thought snakes only killed what they would eat, but apparently that's not always the case. I'm thinking it was a similar deal with the anoles, instinct was to kill but for some reason they were't eaten afterward.
 
That's my thinking as well. I used to have a Brazilian rainbow that would slam absolutely anything that crossed its nose, be it live, dead, or a human hand (ask me how I know) but would often completely refuse to eat it. He was a great snake, but certainly frustrating because every week it took 20 minutes to figure out if he was hungry.
 
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