| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Laws |
Posted - 02/05/2011 : 21:52:59
okies so we have had zac since the 1st of april , his last feed was 25th march and he has refused to feed with us ever since . i kno its very early days and he is still settling in , just wondered if we could do anythin now to help or make him start .
hes a cb10 (unsure of quite when ) was a good feeder before we got him . hes in a 30 x 18 x 15 , its got two hides in warm end and cold , a huge piece of cork bark and lots of plants . the temps are 22.8 in cold side (no heating in the house on , 25 with heating on) and the warm end is 32.4 heated by a guarded IF bulb. is it time to think about putting him into a faun inside the viv ? he was in a faun like set up when we got him . someone said that moving him could stress him out all over again , which i do agree with . would just like to check im doin everythin rite . hes a pic of his set up and a pic of him stretch across the front so u can kinda see his size...any help much appreciated :)
as u can see the glass partition in the middle of the viv .
we now have orchid bark as a substrate and the cold end hide is rite by the water bowl now as we moved the big bit of bark over and one in the same place as this pic . also have another little piece of bark in the big gap at the front |
| 19 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 04/05/2011 : 18:33:25
They are sent to entice and stress. Well to start with then they are just a joy. You need a Boa in your life. They fill the gaps that the royal leave. They eat for a start, and they seem to like been out and do stuff, bit like a corn snake only bigger. |
| Laws |
Posted - 04/05/2011 : 17:27:03
okies lol im just scared of stressing him , he seems fine when sar held him , didnt ball up and tried going up her sleeve and across the sofa . be nice when he is all settled and we can enjoy him . im bein eyeballed by kodi still , shes making out that shes starving...but i kno shes not . her new favourite thing is to poo on u . she did it to me a few weeks back and looked smug , so smug infact she did the same to sarah the other nite .
i will lift zac's hide in a few days and see whether his eyes are blue , also gona get a few smaller mice and maybe a few rat pups to try and entice him if we establish if he is shedding or not , and heres me wanting more bleeding snakes ! i def wouldnt be without them now ! |
| n/a |
Posted - 04/05/2011 : 16:19:39
Ah, I see - personally I wouldn't worry about lifting his hide for a moment, just to see how he was going on. They're stressy little gits, but not that stressy lol.
Oh boy, corns ... Just wait till they're three or four foot long! And their mission in life is to crap on you ... Corns, corns, why on earth do we keep corns? Sewage machines!
(Only kidding. I love my corns. Stinky little toerags ... ) |
| Laws |
Posted - 04/05/2011 : 13:40:27
i just meant if he is hiding all the time as we dont see him out and i dont want to disturb him too look at him . but we will find shed as the viv is much smaller now , i think it may help . we are also moving the corns off the top of his viv so there is less traffic , u kno what corns are like they poo more than my 15 year old cocker spaniel ! lol . |
| n/a |
Posted - 04/05/2011 : 09:57:26
You've seen your corns in blue; royals aren't any different, and their eyes go exactly the same, milky and blue, and then skin and eyes clear for a couple of days before shed. Good luck. |
| hodgie |
Posted - 04/05/2011 : 09:08:02
quote:
Originally posted by Laws
. how are we gona know hes in blue tho ?
His skin will look very dull. |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 04/05/2011 : 00:19:49
I dont think he needs you to know but you'll see him when you change the water, well you'll get a glimse through the hide door. With time you can slowly removed the extreme measures of a towel and no handling this is a short term thing to get him happy and eating, once he is happy and eating you can introduce other things to him such as handling, and been looked at but right now its for the best to have a little to do with him as is possible so he has chance to hear that belly of his rumbling. |
| Laws |
Posted - 04/05/2011 : 00:06:18
we got him some smaller mice as he had only just had one medium mouse the feed before we got him , so dropped it down , will pick a few rat weaners up two . we have covered the viv with a black towel and leaving him to it . how are we gona know hes in blue tho ? |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 03/05/2011 : 20:49:31
Temps are good, hides are a better size now. Everything you've done is a positive step towards getting Zac feeding. The going blue is a slight spanner in the works but a perfect time for a hands off period with peace and quiet.
I got lucky, he has gone blue and wont be getting offered a rat so has nothing to refuse, as a compromise I'll just have the toast, wouldn't want to waste a perfectly good rat.
Assist feeding is a long way off, you've still other options to try before you get to that stage. I've seen it done and it looks a bit rough but isn't too bad, the force feed though is another story, that one really is a last resort and looks brutal.
Another thing you can try is buy a few rat pups, something very small and easy to take and eat quickly, wean him onto feeding by starting small. But all this is after the big shed. |
| Laws |
Posted - 03/05/2011 : 13:14:10
we took the large exo terra one out and have just the medium in the warm end and the coconut in the cool , the viv is half the size now and the temps are 25.6 in cool end and 32.4 in hot , the hides are both in the back corners with more plants etc . fingers crossed for him . im unsure of the other tactics we could try after this one ? they said where we got him from we can take them too him anytime if he refuses to feed and they can show us how to assist (i wouldnt wanna do that till last resort tho ) |
| n/a |
Posted - 03/05/2011 : 10:57:35
LOL, Bob, that made me chuckle - especially as he's going into blue now and probably won't be eating next week unless he gets his kit off quick.
You know, fried mouse used to be a recognised cure for whooping cough, and probably smoker's cough, and man 'flu too ... |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 03/05/2011 : 01:46:30
He will be OK your sig pic is showing a nice round royal, any weight loss will be minimal. Try putting some of the aspen you have in one side of the big hide, make it feel smaller than it is. Don't panic just yet, you've plenty of options and potential solutions. Owning Royals seems to be like picking a lock, you have to get all the bits falling into place before it opens (its mouth to eat lol).
Leave him now, no handling at all (except in situations you have no choice), put a towel over the vivarium at sun set until morning, resist the urge to peek, in a weeks time defrost the rat/mouse on top of the viv and put it in the vivarium at around 11pm and then leave the room. If that rat/mouse is still there in the morning, fry it up and I'll eat it on toast. |
| Laws |
Posted - 03/05/2011 : 00:33:34
ok so we have just sectioned of near enough half of the viv with some hardboard , its not a perfect fit , but it wont move , he does look smaller than i thought . my other half held him and hes definately looking skininer :( |
| markmifsud |
Posted - 03/05/2011 : 00:25:39
you could try making sure he is in darkness for a few hours before the feed, warm the mouse up, and maybe also try a smaller mouse. My female cb10 turns her nose up at the mice I feed the male cb10 but she enjoys the smaller mice, I will be trying her on baby rats to see if she takes to them as they are small, but way more protein than the mice she is getting |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 02/05/2011 : 23:33:51
If you have everything you need to do it, like heat mat, mat stat etc then its an option. If he just fits in the coconut I'd say medium exoterras are probably about as big as you want to go, Duke outgrew his medium and he looks tiny in the large one jammed into the lower section. It is probably just a security thing, he's not feeling invisible enough. |
| Laws |
Posted - 02/05/2011 : 23:26:17
he only just fits into the coconut , infact wen we lifted the coconut out a few weeks back he was wedged in there , we have just kept it as its somethin he had in his old viv . i will try and get the other halfs dad to chop the hardboard down to make the viv smaller and see if that helps , is it not worth the faun idea inside the hide then ?x |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 02/05/2011 : 23:21:17
If he still fits in a coconut the large exoterra is far too big, Duke just moved to a large and he could wear a coconut as a viking helmet. Reduce the hide size, the viv size, and feed and then turn out all the room lights, and if you want to observe go as far away as possible and keep still. I have to usually wait 20-30 minutes for Duke to take the food but he wont do it if the room lights or tv are and he always spots me if i'm anywhere near so I move far away and strain to see.
I change my orchid bark in the area around a poop and leave the rest, I'll do a full strip down and clean out probably every 2 months but he is such a clean snake if its not dirty, why clean it. Not like my corn, he gets spot cleaned every day and full stripdowns once a month unless it smells earlier than that. |
| Laws |
Posted - 02/05/2011 : 22:29:25
i now have another exo terra one , abit like the one your duke grew out of . wen we last fed him , he did show alot more interest tongue flicking out and his nose krept out and got close to the mouse , we waiting with held breath , but to no avail . we left it in over night very close to his hide , but woke up with it there . he weighed 190 g last time we weighed him empty . i do have some spare hardboard that i could make it smaller with , no way of cutting it tho . he does swap between his hides , we never see him do it , even tho he does move in the day we have noticed like a little ninja ! we have come back in the early hours and seen him coming out of his warm hide , but he is always 's' shaped wen he pops his head out . he seems to like the warm end hide , we have two in warm end a little coconut one and in the cool end a large exo terra and the cork bark rests over the top . oh how often do u chamge ur orchid bark bob ? |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 02/05/2011 : 22:21:35
It is a possibility that its the size of the vivarium or even that its not packed full of foliage, rather than a big change get a piece of wood cut to size and just section off a section of the vivarium, that way everything is the same only smaller.
Are you feeding in viv and covering the front with a towel, put the rat close to the hide, Duke pokes his head out, grabs the rat and pulls it into the hide. Also swap the hides over, the exoterra is a better hide and the ambient side is normally the hide of choice. Worth a try. |
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