| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Kelfezond |
Posted - 01/07/2012 : 10:24:34
“My royal isn’t eating”
I hear this almost every day on our forum and while we’re always happy to treat each person as an individual and each snake problem as its own I thought I’d post up here for everyone to see my way of dealing with fasting royals.
Before I begin I want to say one more time for the record this is just my way of doing it, there is no definite right way and every keeper eventually finds their own way of doing it.
I find there are a few stages of severity when it comes to royals not eating and depending on which stage the royal is in I take different action.
Firstly I’ll quickly go over how I feed in a step-by-step
1. I firstly take the rodents I am planning to feed out of the freezer in the morning and place them on a tray on top of a vivarium where the wood begins to warm above the heating bulb (if you don’t use a bulb it doesn’t matter any side or table will do fine I just like the extra warmth)
2. By midnight they are fully defrosted and I’m ready to feed
3. I lay out all the rodents for that feed in a row (all level heads) and run a hairdryer over them all for about 2 minutes. This normally fills the room with a rat scent (which is just lovely :/ ) and the snakes are normally beginning to poke their heads out
4. I take my chosen rat and blast the head with a hairdryer for 30 seconds
5. Holding the tail or hind legs I offer the rodent to the snake, personally I don’t like spending too long in front of the snake I normally know if they’re going to eat or not pretty quickly but for beginners take as long as you need to
6. If the snake fails to strike I place the rodent in the middle of the cage and leave it overnight
7. By morning I check if anything has been eaten and remove the unwanted food to be disposed of
I should mention here a quick list of potential 'problems' that can cause a royal to stop feeding.
Too much handling for too long
Vivarium too close to television / speakers
Illness/Diesease
Enclousure set up incorrectly
Approaching breeding season
Stage 1: The Healthy Fast
Description: It is best said straight off the bat that royals have a strange way of surviving in captivity, they’re not keen on eating at the best of times and even though they are opportunist predators they do quite often refuse to eat, there is nothing wrong with this – it is not failing on part of the keeper, most of the time the snake is perfectly happy and healthy he’s just not eating. This can last anything from missing two or three feeds to not feeding for 12 months, depending on the size of the royal the fasting can last longer. It is very important through the life of your snake to keep accurate records of the royals weight, when the fast begins we can watch the weight and see how steady it falls during the fast. It is important that we know the difference between a healthy fast and an unhealthy fast – this is determined by weight loss. Now it’s very difficult to give figures and say “If your royal loses x grams then he needs help” so I won’t try and give a number but rather say that once you have been keeping the royal for some time you’ll know by going over previous records what weight loss you should experience from a healthy fast, if this is the first time your royal has gone off food I would suggest the only course of action you take is waiting and being patient. If he loses 10% of his bodyweight you need to consider him in a different stage to this.
What I do for Stage 1: Patience! Here we just wait and see how it goes, until something changes we don’t need to take any other action. Keep track of the weight and consider spacing his feeds further apart (If he feeds every 5 days change it to every 7)
Stage 2: The Long Fast
Description: When a snake has been fasting for a considerable amount of time (For me this is normally 4-5 months) but has not begun to lose any considerable weight I personally get inpatient and begin to take alternate action, while at this stage you can still just wait it out and no harm will come to the snake you’re probably at the end of your tether and stressing about him, many a time I’ve ended up losing my temper with a non-feeder after 8 or 9 months and decided if he doesn’t feed soon it’s going to be more stressful to me than it is to him!
What I do for Stage 2: Now I’ve seen a lot of people turn to assist feeding for this stage and I strongly advise against it! This is the stage I begin experimenting with different sized foods, adding scents to the prey (like dipping it in chicken stock or covering in chick blood) or braining (Personally none of these have ever worked for me, others swear by them but I’ve never gotten a royal to feed any way other than regular prey heated up with a hairdryer)
Stage 3: The Unhealthy Fast
Description: Here we notice our royal losing weight and no matter what we try we cannot get any food in him. It’s not gotten dangerous yet but it is extremely stressful for us and it’s bordering on harmful for him. This is a particularly dangerous stage; it can very easily slip into a bad state here if we’re not careful. We want to find the perfect balance between not stressing him out and getting food into him.
What I do for Stage 3: Depending on how your royal is to handle you can begin attempting to assist-feed (See Assist-feeding below) here, what we are doing here is trying to give him a taste for food finally – I’ve seen some royals that when assist-fed will immediately begin constricting the food and from that day on be happy to feed, this I’ve found is mostly with young royals. At this stage we continue to offer food spread out, we can continue experimenting with scenting and other such methods but we’re beginning to get a little more hands on. Hopefully after this the royal will return to a normal feeding schedule.
Stage 4: Harmful Fast
Description: If after Stage 3 the royal is still not feeding and still losing weight rapidly thing are getting dicey, at this stage I advise seeking a vets attention. We can consider more methods of feeding now as well.
What I do for Stage 4: Here I pull out all the stops, it’s no longer a case of worrying about how stressed my royal will become it’s a case of “He needs food to live” and any way I can get it into him I will. At this point (unless my royal appears unhealthy) I begin live feeding, now I don’t want a debate on the morality or law on live-feeding so I’ll just say that you are within your rights to do what is needed to keep your royal healthy, and as long as you don’t go about it in a silly way you are fine. Live feeding needs to be done with the upmost care for your snake and the rodent (See Live Feeding below). I have only had to do Live Feeding twice since I started caring for snakes and each time it has been a miracle, however I stress again that we DO NOT consider it until Stage 4, it is not a “quick-fix” to the royal mentality. If the snake refuses Live food and refuses Assist-feeding then force feeding can be considered.
How to
Assist-feed
Assist feeding is a relatively simple thing to do but it can be stressful to snakes, especially if they are not used to being handled and pinned.
Firstly I take my snake out of his enclosure and let him slither through my hands for a few moments, when he has calmed a little I gently pin him behind his head
Next I take a small rodent (Normally about the size of my snakes head, possibly slightly bigger) and press the nose of the rat firmly to the snakes mouth. At this point he will open his mouth and (hopefully) bite down onto the rodent and begin constricting, when he has done this I let him go and place him back in his home.
If he does not constrict (which is often the case) I gently ease the rodent a little further into his mouth (normally to his back teeth) and then while still holding both the rodent in his mouth and his head, I gently place him back in his cage, when he stops struggling I let go and cross my fingers, hoping he carries on eating. I find it’s normally 50/50 to if he’ll carry on or not, I only try the once per feed.
Live Feed
Live feeding is relatively easily, it’s just a test of common sense. Once the rodent (I use multi’s) has been introduced I watch closely, I always have a wooden chopstick at hand as it’s a fairly blunt and soft instrument which I can work with. After 5 minutes if the snake has not made any attempt on his dinner I call it quits, you can go slightly longer but keep a close eye on whats going on.
Normally it’s a simple case of “if the rodent bites the snake, take it out” but it gets tricky when the snake does strike and constricts but faffs it up, fortunately this only happened once to me and it was simply a case of holding the stick between the rats mouth and the snakes scales so he was unable to bite him, a few seconds pass and the rodent is normally dead before you know whats going on. NEVER leave the rodent alone with the snake.
Force Feeding
Force feeding is very stressful and I always consider it the absolute last resort, I have only had to do this once on a snake that had never had a feed and I simply did it to give him enough bodyweight to take a live-feed without worrying me. The principle is the same as assist-feeding except you never let go and you continue to very gently work the rodent to the point of no return. This should only be considered after consulting an expert and especially after a vet visit.
I hope this has been useful and as always I am available for contact at Kelfezond@hotmail.co.uk or on facebook at KelfezondReptiles
Goodluck and happy feeding!
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| 20 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| DaveG |
Posted - 24/04/2013 : 16:24:09
a great guide for newbies, hope i never get to the asisst stage with mine as i don't think i could do it |
| JanieW |
Posted - 07/04/2013 : 09:09:44
Slinky has eaten two small weaner rats since end of October..lost almost 100g. She shows interest, even struck but missed 2 weeks ago but hasn't actually eaten. Not desperately worried yet but getting there lol |
| Kelfezond |
Posted - 02/04/2013 : 15:29:07
quote:
Originally posted by andybeta
Great post. You've set my slightly worrying mind at rest. (Ripley's not fed since January 16th, but only lost 40g / 5% of body weight over that time.)
Shouldn't be too long before he starts again :) |
| andybeta |
Posted - 02/04/2013 : 14:42:15
Great post. You've set my slightly worrying mind at rest. (Ripley's not fed since January 16th, but only lost 40g / 5% of body weight over that time.) |
| Snecklifter |
Posted - 26/03/2013 : 11:20:18
quote:
Originally posted by Kelfezond
20g isn't a big deal :)
Yes indeed. But he's almost certainly lost more since. I think i'm happy enough as I said, because although he MUST have lost weight, he looks healthy enough.
As you say, he'll probably start feeding again at some point - after all, 4 months is nothing for a Royal. |
| Kelfezond |
Posted - 26/03/2013 : 10:34:15
20g isn't a big deal :) |
| Snecklifter |
Posted - 26/03/2013 : 09:09:28
quote:
Originally posted by Kelfezond
How much exact weight loss was it and what was his starting weight when he first stopped feeding?
Havent weighed him for ages, but he was almost exactly a kilo before fasting. We weighed him again around Christmas time, so about 2 months after his last feed. He'd lost ~20 grams. Havent weighed him since because - well, he doesn't look like he's lost much more to be honest. At least, he doesn't look unhealthy if you know what I mean. |
| Kelfezond |
Posted - 25/03/2013 : 16:18:46
How much exact weight loss was it and what was his starting weight when he first stopped feeding? |
| Snecklifter |
Posted - 25/03/2013 : 16:10:50
quote:
Originally posted by Kelfezond
Yep they normally start again from their own free will, you only really need to intervene if you're either inpatient or the snake is losing weight increasingly.
I'm at the 'Frustrated' but 'Not desperately worried' stage. He last ate on October 28th last year and prior to that had gone 6 weeks without a feed. We try him every couple of weeks and actually is showing a bit more interest now, although still no eating. Visually, he looks fine physically, although he lost weight for sure, he's noticeably lighter in the hand than he was. But, having said that, he's still pretty active and is showing no obvious signs of illness. |
| Kelfezond |
Posted - 25/03/2013 : 16:05:42
Yep they normally start again from their own free will, you only really need to intervene if you're either inpatient or the snake is losing weight increasingly. |
| Snecklifter |
Posted - 25/03/2013 : 15:42:30
So, is it usual for a fasting Royal to simply begin feeding again at some point?
I can imagine that it would be a very unusual behaviour for an apparently healthy snake to refuse food to the point of self harm or even death. |
| Kelfezond |
Posted - 15/07/2012 : 13:10:24
When I live-fed it was done in a RUB, viv's tend to be more difficult to get into so I'd only advise it in a Viv if you have full and quick access |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 07/07/2012 : 21:13:34
I would think in familiar surroundings BUT well supervised is the way to do it but this would come with you needing to be on mouse/rat poop watch as well as making sure no suffering occurs. |
| Lincsfox |
Posted - 07/07/2012 : 16:38:20
Just a quick question, if you do have to go down the live route, would you do it in their own viv or somewhere more open to the food is easier to get, an empty RUB for example?
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| Kelfezond |
Posted - 02/07/2012 : 11:53:32
Righto fella's, will leave it as is and sticky. Thanks for the kind words and extra advice. |
| Danno91 |
Posted - 01/07/2012 : 23:37:12
Very good post, this would have saved me alot of research a while back, im intrested to see what you do with assist and live as if I had gotten to that stage I was planing on live before assist, as you know I was lucky not to need to.
I'll agree sticky this please |
| austin_89 |
Posted - 01/07/2012 : 22:37:03
Sticky!
Great post kelf :) |
| reptiledanny |
Posted - 01/07/2012 : 19:28:28
thought id chip in and add one thing. my male hasnt eaten since last movember, and that was a fast since i think october, where he took one chick in november, and then hasnt eaten anything since. he weighed roughly around 950 grams when he started. recently hes been hitting the 800-850g mark, so to me this was to much of a wieght gain. the mind games constantly played of 'he will eat when hes ready in his own time' but now it was time to start taking action.
was buying food today, and thought id ask if they had any gerbals/multis etc in. he didnt, but had the chicks in again. thought since i hadnt tried him on chicks for a long time id get a couple.
low and behold, tonight i offer chick, he does his usual 'seems interested, but then goes back into hide'. i then removed the hide and showed him chick again. again he did his usuall lick and sniff, so thought id leave it in with him. fed corn and checked back, hes still interested. fed boa, and low and behold while shes eating i check back on him and theres the chick in his mouth.
step forward, will offer him a chick next weekend end and see how he goes from here.
just shows, keep trying, and then work your way up. if he hadnt eaten my next step would have been multis. if they hadnt worked it would have been assist, and then it would have been live after that. obviosly all of these would have been tried for a few weeks. |
| Stewy-C- |
Posted - 01/07/2012 : 18:46:51
I also think assist feeding should be before live. When done correctly there should be little stress for the snake. I tend to lift the glass out of the viv, and assist them in their own viv. When they have slid their jaws two times on each side, in goes the glass and out goes the light.
I also would even force feed (in the way I stated above) before live feeding in most cases. Reason being, I think with most royals I could get a decent sized meal inside of them in under 2 minutes. Therefore minimising stress as much as possible. Also it has been proved how hard it is for me to get live mice in my area.
I wouldn't expect many people would force feed before trying a live feeding though. As I know the snake being willing to eat is important, but if done with little stress, forcing will kick start a snake in most cases. |
| Fezza |
Posted - 01/07/2012 : 18:32:20
quote:
Originally posted by Kelfezond
Haha I was hoping nobody would notice I only become a good Mod' on sundays xD Yeah I think I will if nobody has any objections to the content :)
Also re-thinking the live feeding bit, I always say live over assist and yet here I've put assist in stage 3 and live in stage 4 ... hmm
controversial!
I'd be tempted to leave as it is but that's my opinion. Live feeding would be my last resort. It's your guide though so should reflect your view and experience |
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