Snakes not wanting to eat is a concern that most snake breeders encounter at least once or even twice in their time keeping them. “Help, my snake won’t eat!” is often a problem which pops up time and time again so I wanted to create a webpage handling the problem, and explaining a number of the more common tips and tricks that owners use to start their particular snakes feeding again.

There are lots of species in which rejection of foodstuff may never be a problem, ravenous feeders like corn snakes  are generally great feeders – which is a primary reason they are encouraged as beginners snakes. By contrast, if you opt to keep something such as a hognose snake or perhaps a ball python, amongst several species there may come a period when your snake chooses it does not want to feed for just one reason behind another – and you may need to coax it in to feeding. There are a variety of techniques employed commonly in the hobby. Though this article we will examine some of the causes your snake might decide it does not wish to feed and then move on to methods to help you encourage them to feed.

A snake which has recently been through a big change of atmosphere will often take time to adapt and thus reject food for a couple weeks as it finds its feet so to speak (what a fine term to use when talking about snakes). If you have just lately obtained your snake then give it a couple weeks to settle in before worrying that it’s not eating. Royal pythons specifically may require 30 days or even more to settle in before contentedly feeding. Whilst in this period of settling in try to bother your snake as little as possible.

The most typical cause of a snake not eating happens when it is approaching a slough. Snakes typically go off their food when they are going to get rid of their skin. This process is described as the colouration of the snake dulling and also the eyes going milky in colour. You can find a handful of ideas pertaining to why snakes reject food around shedding time; one is that shedding is a stressful and also dangerous time for the snake so they are usually quite sluggish as well as off their food. One other theory is that the milkiness which covers their particular eyes obscures the particular vision which makes it difficult for these to observe their own food and so forth, which puts the snake off feeding. Sloughing may cause a snake to refuse food

Overwintering. Snakes are also well known for neglecting to feed during winter time – this really is perfectly natural. In the wild several snakes will “over winter” or even brumate where they enter a state which isn’t different to hibernation. During captivity even if you don’t reduce temperatures your own snake will usually be able to tell it is winter through the particular photoperiod (the particular reducing number of hours of daylight throughout winter).

This frequently triggers the particular snakes to reject food and also action in general. As I say this is perfectly ordinary. This is a “problem” which can be typically seen in male snakes; make ball pythons are usually notorious for fasting for months over winter season. I have one individual royal python who begins to refuse food around the start of November and won’t eat again until early March the following year. He does this particular practically by clockwork and has performed for the last eight years of his life; needless to say he’s completely healthy plus a great breeder.

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