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My snake stopped eating. Any suggestions about "scenting" the pinkies?

J

JohnCA

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I have several African house snakes. Infrequently, one or two will stop eating for 2 or 3 months. I have already tried braining pinkies and fuzzies with only very limited success.

I currently have a female that is only eating every 4 or 6 weeks. She used to eat voraciously. She slowed to eating only every 4 or 6 weeks, starting about 3 months ago.

I really want to fatten her up for eventual pairing with one of my male house snakes.

I saw several scenting juices for sale that are made from anoles and frogs and geckos. Any ideas about which of the three scents an African house snake might be interested in? I would guess perhaps anole scent and gecko scent might be some options that are worth trying (thinking that house snakes might eat a variety of lizards in their natural habitat).

Thanks for your time and suggestions.
 
Not a House Snake snake specialist, but my own first thought is temperatures. Are they warm enough to promote good metabolism?

When I flipped on the AC, I had to change some lighting/heating to keep temps up where they needed to be in my enclosures.
 
I don't keep house snakes, but I do breed mountain kingsnakes, so I've dealt with snakes that want to eat lizards.

Scenting is done to 'trick' a hatchling snake into eating an unfamiliar prey item (no offense if this is obvious to you; I don't mean to come off as condescending) . It seems unlikely that the snake has forgotten that rodents are food, so I don't know that scenting will be helpful. It wouldn't hurt anything, though. I've not used the bottled scents. I scent with live lizards (Coleonyx, usually, though I've used house geckos and anoles successfully).

I agree that some environmental parameter might be causing the issue, and should be the first place to look for solutions. Also, I don't know anything about the yearly cycles of house snakes, but many snakes will go off food seasonally. Some pre-breeding-age females will experience 'pseudogravidity' during the typical breeding season and act like they're gravid even though they haven't been with a male. Males will go off food seasonally because they have breeding on the brain (again, likely obvious to male humans ;)).

Also, I've had snakes be fussy, or get fussy, about eating FT rodents; freshly killed or live might be more to the snake's liking. Some snakes are resistant to eating rodents that have been frozen too long, or come from a certain vendor (I raise all my own rodents, and I've had cases where I've sold snakes and the new owner couldn't get them to feed on rodents from their regular vendor, but the snake was immediately ravenous when the person sourced rodents from a different vendor.)

Some snakes strongly prefer rats over mice, or vice versa, so a different rodent species might lead to more regular feeding habits.

Hope this helps.
 
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