jungle python help please :)

[MUD_666]

sorry guys i know i ask a lot of questions and probably looking very amature right now but my little dude keeps doing some strange things ive never heard of happening

i fed him last night for the second time and it didnt go as smooth sailing as last time

i dangled the mouse infront of his face and he ran away onto the floor of his tank but he wouldnt strike untill he got back up into his vine

then he struck the mouse again but dropped it on the way down so it just sat on the bark below

so then he just hung down and moved into strike and didnt go for the snake for a few hours till i came and moved the mouse with the hook he took it straight away

so obviously he wont just take a mouse that aint moving but after he ate and everything was ok i came back a few hours later and he was back in the same postion just waiting to strike at the bark with nothing there

dose this mean he is still hungry and wanting more food or what??

he is a yearling and im feeing him velvet mice like i was told it is leaving a nice bump in his stomach but why is he just sitting in the same spot for hours waiting for the bark to move

cheers guys and any help would be great sorry for the story just want to make sure my little dude has the best of everything

cheers
dylan

 

[Cheyne_Jones]

The bark would have smelled like mice. Snakes never know when their next feed is coming in the wild so they hunt whenever possible.

 

[bfg23]

he can still smell the mouse on the bark below and he is still in feeding mode.

when you offer in the first place just hold onto the mouse instead of the tail and give it a bit of a wiggle.

edit: a yearling jungle on velvet mice? My yearling carpets are eating velvet rats or adult mice.

 

[MUD_666]

he can still smell the mouse on the bark below and he is still in feeding mode.

when you offer in the first place just hold onto the mouse instead of the tail and give it a bit of a wiggle.

edit: a yearling jungle on velvet mice? My yearling carpets are eating velvet rats or adult mice.

yeah so dose this mean im not feeding him enough??

this is what i got told to feed it so im just doing what i got told

 

[Poggle]

i would imagine the bark would have smelled like mice. Eventually the snake will strike and the take the mouse with lil movement from your end but being only young he still might require it every now and then, as for the eating from a tree, carpets are also arboreal snakes and then for can hunt and will hunt hanging/ suspended etc. All these things are normal you will begin to see more and more things that are unusual with your snake as you keep him, there is only so much you can read about on the net or in books so just enjoy and learn from what go's on with the real thing but having a site like this also help cause people whom have already experienced sauch things can help out

 

[redbellybite]

upsize to weener mice ...fully fur and eating solids ...do this for a few feeds then you can introduce ratties ...my yearling carpet is now on weener rats ...she has no drama getting them down ..and they are bigger then grown mice ..

 

[bfg23]

Where abouts did you get the snake? and were they the ones who told you what to feed?

As for noticing your reptile doing funny things- they definately are strange creatures. I watched my crocodile scratch behind his head with his back leg like a dog the other day, then went on to scoop a few pebbles up off the bottom of the tank and eat them!

 

[Chris1]

i generally make sure they grab it and eat it straight away, i dont like the thought of a dead rodent growing bacteria for hours of the floor of a warm cage.


u might wanna try feeding him out of the cage,...firstly so he doenst mistake u for food on a non feeding day and secondly so he doesnt ingest any of the bark.

click claks are good for feeding in if hes still nervous, once mine settle i use chairs to hang them off, seems to make finding the head easier for them.
and makes dangling the rat without endangering my fingers easier for me.

 

[MUD_666]

yeah im going to go buy the next size up and try him on them it just worried me that he was still hunting for more after i fed him witch obviouslt means he is still hungry ??

 

[JAS101]

my junglw will normally strike , constrict - then release then try and find the head lol

 

[MUD_666]

i generally make sure they grab it and eat it straight away, i dont like the thought of a dead rodent growing bacteria for hours of the floor of a warm cage.


u might wanna try feeding him out of the cage,...firstly so he doenst mistake u for food on a non feeding day and secondly so he doesnt ingest any of the bark.

click claks are good for feeding in if hes still nervous, once mine settle i use chairs to hang them off, seems to make finding the head easier for them.
and makes dangling the rat without endangering my fingers easier for me.

but aint you not ment to touch them after they have fed for a day or two??

and i have been feeding him down one side and he has cottened onto that already he was sitting at the feeding end last night ready anyway

well thanks for the info everyone i just want to make sure he is happy

 

[MUD_666]

another quick question could i feed my snake twice a week to get rid of the small mice i have then when i have one left try him on the bigger mice ???

or just keep it to one a week??

 

[Cheyne_Jones]

Go once a week and feed 2 prey items.

 

[MUD_666]

thank you very much

 

[Serpentes]

MUD, your snake is sitting in an ambush position. This is how they hunt in the wild, and is completely usual behaviour. You will find that he will spend many long hours sitting in that position. This doesn't mean you should feed him whenever he sits in ambush position, or you'd overfeed him very quickly.

Never feed him more than once a week, like said above, a few small items at once is the trick.

 

[MUD_666]

cheers guys sounds like a plan to run out the smaller mice then put him up a size

but he was sitting in that postion for over 8 hours overnight

i just thought that was a bit wierd to be staring at the ground for 8 hours

 

[redbellybite]

cheers guys sounds like a plan to run out the smaller mice then put him up a size

but he was sitting in that postion for over 8 hours overnight

i just thought that was a bit wierd to be staring at the ground for 8 hours

they are ambush creatures ...

 

[Chris1]

but aint you not ment to touch them after they have fed for a day or two??

i just dont touch the lumpy bit when i move them back into their enclosures, theyve never had a prob with it.

up to u though, it was merely a suggestion.

 

[Serpentes]

....
i just thought that was a bit wierd to be staring at the ground for 8 hours

Some reptiles can afford to sit there in ambush for many days, even weeks. Carpet pythons will sit alongside somewhere that smells like prey and wait, and wait, and wait. Sometimes this is what they have to do in order to get a feed. Pythons typically have low metabolic rates and don't really use much energy when sitting still, such as in ambush. If they need to, when they get really hungry, they digest their own stomaches and then quickly re-grow them after they've eaten again! All these neat tricks have evolved to help pythons survive the unpredictable availability of food in the wild.

 

[MUD_666]

i just dont touch the lumpy bit when i move them back into their enclosures, theyve never had a prob with it.

up to u though, it was merely a suggestion.

yeah thats cool and thanks for the sugestion im just trying to work out fact from fiction with everything im being told so i can figure out what to do



thank you very much everyone