Alice the Bullsnake

Alice did not eat the medium rat the other night. In fact she was just laying on it the next morning. I gave her a break yesterday and am trying to feed her again today. First try will be a brained weanling. If that fails then I will try scenting it with a mouse. As a fallback I will feed her the mouse in hopes that she will get in a strong feeding mode and take the scented weanling rats. I am about ready to give up and just order some frozen large and jumbo mice and forget about trying to get her back on appropriately sized prey items. It would be a lot less expensive than these trips to Petsmart for boxes of mice.

Since Alice has accepted only a few medium rats since late last year I decided to try one of the suggested prey drive triggers of braining the rat. I thawed out a 112g medium rat and got it nice and warm in a bowl of water. Using a fillet knife, I cut a slit in the skull into the brain. Not as messy as it sounds I might add. Alice was very interested in the rat and bit it and pushed it around on the plate. I could see her with its head in her mouth several times however she would never try to swallow it. I put a towel over the front of her habitat to block her view of the outside world in hopes she would return to the rat and eat it. I will check in on her later tonight.

Alice refused the weanling rats again this feeding and only ate the mouse that was used to scent the rats. Looking back over the past feedings where she did eat the scented rats, the mouse used to scent them was bleeding due to the tissue damage from being frozen. Therefore the scented rats had mouse blood smeared all over them. I will have to test that at the next feeding. Her health and activity are good and she seems fine other than she does not like the rats she is being offered. As a last resort I can try live prey. That will have to be a last resort though as I am afraid of her being injured in the process of killing the prey. Otherwise I will be feeding her 5 or 6 large mice a week. Not the best for her or me.

Offered Alice 3 weanling rats this evening. She smelled of them and crawled past them. I removed the rats and got out a large mouse to thaw out and use that to scent the rats again. I offered her the mouse to get her in feeding mode. She quickly consumed the mouse. I then placed the scented weanling rats in her habitat. After pushing them around she finally started to eat one of them. She swallowed it about half way and then spit it out. I left the rats in with her and turned out the lights. I will check in the morning to see if any are missing.

On feeding Alice today I decided to try unscented weanling rats first. She was hungry, however she had no interest in the rats. I removed the rats and thawed out a large mouse. I scented all the rats with the mouse and fed Alice the mouse first. She quickly removed the mouse from my grasp. I placed the rats on a paper plate and placed them in her enclosure. She did have a false start on one of the rats, however she ate all three on them. At a total of 140g of rodent, I think she will be content for a few days.

Alice gobbled down the mouse she snapped out of my fingers and without hesitation ate both the weanling rats on the paper plate. There was none of the “I want this and then spitting it out” that she has done several times recently. I will keep feeding her the weanling rats until she is completely consistent in eating them before I try to start working back up to medium rats.

I offered Alice 3 weanling rats last night. During the night she ate one of the rats and pretty much left the other two untouched. I did not scent these with a mouse. I will try scented ones after she defecates again.

Alice ate 2 weanling rats and 1 large mouse this evening. It took her a while to get the weanlings down. She tried several times and would spit the rats back out. Since she was still interested in them, I placed them back on the paper plate in her habitat, turned out the lights and left her alone. I returned about an hour later to find an empty plate and a rather satisfied looking snake.

I went to Mice Direct yesterday to pick up a bag of rat weanlings for Alice. With them being between the size of a large mouse and a small rat I thought that would be a good solution for keeping her on rats while she wants small prey items. While I was holding one by the tail and she struck and missed. She struck at it again and missed a second time. After that she ignored the offering for a while. Later on she did start to eat it. She had it about half way in her mouth and spit it back out. She still seemed to want it, however she would not eat it. I made a trip over to Petsmart and picked up a box of large frozen mice. I had one already in the freezer. I thawed all five of those out. She snapped up every one of the mice.

I have already taken her to the vet for a checkup and everything looked fine. I still feel that this is not a health issue but a preference issue.

Alice shed on Thursday of this week. My wife recorded part of the process. I will post the video once I complete editing.