This is Danny, she is about a year and a half old. I have gotten her to eat twice since owning her, other than that nothing at all. The person I got her from said she was eating live, never specified if it was rats, mice, or what just live. I got her two eat two frozen thawed quail. Her humidity is around 60% and her heat is anywhere from 83 to 86 depending on the time of day. She seems healthy and happy, I’m just worried with her not eating she’ll start dropping weight. Any tips?
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Dumerils boas, in my experience, love food.
They are not normally shy about it either. If heat and humidity( a little high, imo) are on point then I would guess you haven’t hit on prefered prey, not enough cover or being handled too much.
As stated, they aren’t usually picky. Mine will eat anything/anytime offered. I can pick mine up and wave food in their face. However, if they feel they prey is too large they will get defensive. I.e a slightly larger than normal f/t rat will elicit hissing, thrashing and hiding. That said, in the wild, they eat anything they can subdue. Even each other. So, anything offered should be,at least, inspected. If mice and rats aren’t accepted but quail are, try scent transfer. Soft fur rats would be worth a try as well.
In nature, Dhu tend to have a limited home range that they occupy for months or years on end. Often using the same hideaway during non active times.How is your set up for hide areas and do you change it occasionally? Sometimes they don’t like changes at home.
Sometimes, we’re all guilty of this, handling can put them off food. This doesn’t seem entirely likely but consider it. Also consider that he doesn’t know you. Many snakes can recognize their humans and need time to adjust to new people.
Hydration or lack of, will also put them off food.
Is he in shed? Probably won’t matter but…
Parasites, has there been any issues ?
Lights going on and off sporadically? Activity around the enclosure? Giant beings looking at him? Cats? Dogs? Can I eat this animal or am I in danger of being eaten?
Once settled the average dummy should pop out of the hide and demand food. How long have you been keeping him? How is his enclosure set up? Not generally known to fast but they can go a long time without eating so don’t fret too much.
Btw, Dhu is the Malagash word for Dumerils boa.
If I think of anything else I’ll get back to you.
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She has two hides and a log she’ll hide in too we gave her more substrate for her to burrow and added a whole lot of plants so she’d be more comfortable with roaming given she didn’t have but maybe two plants to begin with she has a pretty decent sized water bowl bc the person I got her from said she loved to soak turns out she had mites and I’ve taken care of that issue too I’ve had her since November and we hardly handle her due to her not eating but the two quail she’s in a 4Lx2Wx18”H that she came with and we plan on upping her to a 4x2x2 here shortly in the next month or so and we have a day/night cycle that matches outsides day/night cycle to a T she’s in our reptile room with all our other reptiles facing away from the other ones so I’m not sure it’s that but we are in here quite a lot taking care of the other ones so maybe that might be the cause?
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Have you tried live food? Your boa doesn’t look malnourished and if it’s used to live at that age then it will be difficult to switch to F/T. In my opinion its not your enclosure or cycles, boas have insane feeding responses so I’d try something live at the appropriate size and see how it goes. You haven’t mentioned any regurgitation so I doubt sickness is the culprit either. If you want to keep with F/T I’d get a long pair of tongs and move the prey a lot infront the boa, sometimes warming the prey helps and in some cases you need manually feed the prey by sticking 3/4 of the body in the mouth and throat but should be absolute last resort and you’re no where near that at this point as your boa still looks good.
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I tried live weaned and live small mouse maybe? It was super tiny. Tried those when I first got her and nothing at all, not even a lick in their direction. When I got her to eat the first quail she didn’t even wrap it, took it like a hognose almost? She just ate it from the tongs, so I’m kind of concerned to give her a live by this point… But, maybe?
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Is it remotely possible that you could get back in contact with this person and ask what size rodent she was eating and also whether it was mouse or rat? I agree with @flrt-dennis Dennis that she doesn’t look malnourished or ill. And the fact that she has eaten twice for you at least is a good sign.
Maybe this girl is used to a certain feeding schedule/routine like certain types of food and certain times of day being fed including tong feeding or drop feeding . However I have never owned a dumerils boa so this is purely an uneducated guess.
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I agree with what everyone has said sofar. I owned two big adults Dumerils years ago. They were over 7 feet long and around 30 lbs each. They would go off feeding just about every winter for about 100 + days. My male even stop of 230 day once. On average he would only eat 4 to 5 times a year. They would only eat large rats or adult guinea pigs. I tried 3 and 5 lbs. rabbits but they never would take one.
Most of my adult BCC and BCI boas would eat rabbits. My big retic I owned years ago would eat a 10 lbs. rabbit once a month.
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I asked the guy while I was picking her up what he fed her and whether it was f/t or live he just said whatever “looked appropriately sized” and live that he would just drop it in there and leave her alone. Sounded wrong to me for sure bc I have one a bci that will only eat live and I can’t for the life of me leave her alone while she eats a live
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Did they go off feeding for the winter at a year and a half?
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Hmmmmm. Yeah that sounds kinda strange to me and not at all a very helpful answer!
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Most winters they would stop eating. The male was the one who went the longest. Almost a year. 230 days just 35 days short of a year. They where 7 feet long and 30 lbs.
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They’re gorgeous! I really hope my lady starts eating again. Thank you for all your help!
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