At wits end... how do I get this guy to eat??

[Ryachanira]

As I am sure most of you know, I have had Silv for 7 weeks now, and I am honestly not sure he has eaten at all. At first I thought he had eaten at least a worm or two, but having found an unaccounted for worm in the cage when I cleaned it out Sunday I am starting to doubt he has eaten at all. A couple of weeks ago I started tube feeding him at the vets instructions, since she did not like the idea of bruminating him with his head/eye/tail wounds. I stopped tube feeding him the week he was shedding since I read they don't often eat during that phase naturally anyway.

Today I tried a cut up worm for him again... and no interest at all. He crawled over the worm pieces, the world pieces crawled all over him (including his head) and he was very active in the feed box, just not interested at all. In the past I have tried fish (in bowl and flopping in feeding box), pinkies and worms, whole/chopped, wiggling with tongs or just in the cage, etc.. he never shows even the slightest amount of interest, the food may as well not be there. On the other hand, before shedding he had gotten fairly complacent with the tube feeding.

Any other ideas, or do I just need to keep trying these same old things? He is starting to drive me a bit crazy with his refusal to eat! Obviously he must haven eaten SOMETHING before we took him in, since he was 3-4 months old by the vets estimation, but I can't seem to figure out what he might like to eat...

[Tyrel26]

Does he drink much? I think this may have been mentioned in another post but Ill bring this up again anyway.

Try removing the water dish from his enclosure for a day or 2 and then offer him some cut up fish or worm. By doing this I was able to get some of my snakes to start feeding.

[EasternGirl]

Hello and nice to meet you!

I don't know much since I am new at this too. I took in a baby garter three weeks ago and he just ate for the first time yesterday. He did the same thing as your snake for the first three weeks....he just crawled over the food I offered, and acted as if it wasn't even there. I tried everything. Yesterday, he finally ate some earthworm and now he wants to eat all the time. In my situation, I think my guy is still adjusting to captivity, as he is very frightened of me still. Does your snake seem skiddish? I noticed that you say he was wounded...maybe this has something to do with it.

By the way...I have a cat named Luna too!

Good luck with getting your guy to eat!

[Ryachanira]

Tyrel - I honestly never see him in the water dish. About once every other day I stick his head in the water dish and it is like he suddenly realizes he is thirsty, then drinks for quite awhile... pretty much without fail, he drinks when I do this. Not sure if he doesn't realize the water is there, or like many others have guessed, he just drinks when I am not looking. But either way that might be worth a try.

Marnie - Hello to you too! Luna is a great kitty name. :) Silv seems very content to be held (at least by me, he still seems somewhat skittish around my husband, who holds him MUCH less). He never hides from me, and he always tries to crawl back up my hand when I attempt to put him down, so I am not sure if that is it or not. It has been 7 weeks now, so I would hope he would start eating soon... I am glad Bibur is eating!

I will perhaps give some small guppies a try again, although I am not sure if I will have any luck or not. I may have to cave in and give him a tube feed again soon though, don't want him to go too hungry!

[mb90078]

Have you tried increasing his temperature at all? I have found my garters' appetites are very dependent on temperature this time of year. Even if I know they're hungry, but I haven't had the heating pad on much, they won't eat, but if I warm them up a bit more, they're extremely enthusiastic about eating. Now even when it's cool, it's well above brumating temperatures, but still cooler than typical summer temperatures. Just something to look into.

[ssssnakeluvr]

he may need to be brumated. many of my snakes quit feeding in the late fall, normal for them to get ready for winter. many of my babies and holdbacks do that..... if they stop feeding for 2 to 3 weeks I brumate them for a month. they generally start feeding when they warm up. if he is absolutely refusing to eat, he may be trying to brumate...keeping him warm might cause him to starve.

[ConcinusMan]

I can honestly say that I don't have that problem with any CB babies as long as they get at least 13 hours of "daylight" and are kept at regular summer temps. In other words, they don't know it's fall so they don't go off food. Some of my adults did go off food for few weeks but I think that's because things cooled off and daylight coming through the window got shorter. I just increased the day by a couple of hours and increased the temperature a bit and they soon started eating again.

[ssssnakeluvr]

I have cb babies that go off feed...they are kept at warm temps too.... but I have some that aren't brumating

[ConcinusMan]

Well Don, those two radix hets didn't go off food but I read that you have the others brumating. These two are in with a few concinnus babies and they're growing fast and of course, they have that garbage gut feeding habits just like I have come to expect from a radix. They never skip a meal. Amy doesn't either. He's been eating and growing ever since you sent him a year ago.

And I don't think it's only about the heat. Garters are way more sensitive to changes in day length and light intensity than most people give them credit for. Even with the heat, short dim days will make some go off of food. After all, reptiles and birds are very similar. All it takes to get a male wild bird to change over to breeding color and habits is an increase in day length and sun intensity. That's it. I'm sure garters have similar mechanisms built into their DNA.

Many people say I'm full of it and the light doesn't matter. Bull pucky. I've seen the difference a lousy 15 watt full spectrum florescent can make in their attitude and feeding habits, independent of temperature.