My biggest female hadn’t eaten since 11/15. I thought it was just because her last meal was huge but I think I overlooked something. I’ve been feeding live since moving in early December and she’s refused every meal. Tonight I had a snake kill but not eat a rat so I laid it in her tub and she ate it immediately. Now that I look back through her logs she never went off f/t for long enough for me to need to try live so it never occurred to me she might not prefer them.
I hope this fast doesn’t cost me a clutch from her I’ve seen 3 locks with my male.
I’ll have to get a few meals in her before I resume pairing…
Has anyone else ever had a snake that won’t eat live but only likes f/t or pre killed? Never heard of that reverse pickiness before.
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Yes I had a caramel glow that would only eat f/t black rats.
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Yes, I’ve seen a number of snakes who are afraid of live prey and will only eat dead. I had one female blood who would only eat f/k prey because she was scared of live and not interested in anything that had been previously frozen.
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I don’t believe this girl got bit or anything like that, I got her at about 260 g and she was already on f/t.
Maybe just that lazy or doesn’t know how to “kill,” idk.
I guess it’s more common than I thought.
The weird thing about her is she also won’t eat off tongs or “wrap.” She prefers prey just laid on the ground and to be left alone in dark and she swallows it. Weird one. Great eater when I feed her the right way 
That is the exact way this blood was. She would only eat the prey if she was left alone with it. I can say that she was in general an animal with a flighty temperament, easily spooked.
This kind of behaviour is where I start to pay ultra close attention to individual animals. I have a male GHI Mojave that came in to me as a baby started on live mice. I always try to switch everyone to f/t rats and I usually succeed in the first or second week, but this male was NOT having it. He gave me so much trouble that I had to feed him live ASF because I don’t keep mice in any inventory (at the time, anyway).
Mice are ultimately his sweet spot, but I did notice that he does NOT take his widened pupils off of me at all while the tub is open. Come to learn that he simply feels extremely threatened by my presence and food is of negligible concern to him at that point.
I’ve since started working with him by handling him to calm him down, and his feeding habits have improved quite a bit.
I am the kind of keeper that likes to observe the strike and coil. Even f/t counts in the event that prey isn’t struck in it’s head to help ensure that it is swallowed head-first.
It sure gets frustrating when situations like the above persist, for me, but I strongly feel our animals have little ways for us to read what is most likely causing an issue for them. I look forward to what the next decade of reptile keeping and breeding bestows upon our knowledge of these awesome animals!
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Totally agree.
I’m just glad first that I log everything and finally noticed a trend, and also got lucky by having a rat basically get pre killed tonight so I could test the theory.
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