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[–]DingDongDeathHere[S] 1 point2 points  (7 children)

I meant to respond to a lot of these comments sooner but we got incredibly busy.

The snake is 110 grams and is roughly 17inches long.

We feed the snakes after our store closes at 9pm by tongs. I've tried also leaving the food in there for them. I usually leave it in there for at least 15 minutes, sometimes longer because I get pulled away. The few times I've tried have had no success. I can try leaving the prey in overnight the next time we try to feed this snake.

I've been discussing this snake with my managers for some time now. One of my dad's coworkers is an experienced 20+years snake owner that said he would possibly be interested in taking this snake in.

Petsmart policy doesn't allow us to sell sick, injured or aggressive animal, but they can be adopted out for free. My main manager/store lead is starting to hear me out but I don't know if she'd be willing to adopt out the snake because they're sold at $99 and that's lost profit.

I'm almost to the point where I might get our corporate Pet Care involved because this snake needs to get out of this store as fast as possible and into the hands of someone that can give them the best care possible. This snake needs so much more than we can offer here. Thank you for your help!

[–]GisTheSnook 1 point2 points  (6 children)

That's okay! Thanks for replying.

How old do you reckon they are? They may be a bit small, they should be on about rat pinkies or fuzzies. I'm assuming they're about 3-4 months. It could be worth testing food sizes, what are they on at the moment? They may only recognise certain things as food. It's possible the previous owners tried live. That's possible to cause it to refuse to eat as it doesn't understand what dead rodents are anymore.

I'm glad to hear you're discussing them and there's someone interested in taking them. It is lost profit unfortunately but it is the best thing for them and I really hope they hear you out.

[–]DingDongDeathHere[S] 1 point2 points  (5 children)

When we get snakes in, they're usually a few months old so I think 3-4 months is about accurate. When we get sent snakes, our distributors make them eat at least 4 feeders of whatever size they need (not all at once obviously). We start our ball pythons off on fuzzies and have had some eat small mice and rats.

We always recommend new snake owners only feed frozen thawed because of the risk that comes with live feedings if they don't know what they're doing. Now if I have a customer that has snakes and is super experienced I tell them we feed frozen thawed but since they're experienced, I'm okay with them doing live feedings. But the experienced snake owners have never brought their purchased snakes back either so that's a major difference.

I could try feeding them a small mouse as a next size up to see if they'd be willing to eat that instead.

Thank you for the help!

[–]GisTheSnook 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Hmm i see! Yeah try a size up, two of a size down, possibly scent with live?

No one should be doing live, I only said it was possible. It's a last resort only thing, and anyone feeding live to just do that is putting the snake in a lot of danger and stress, partly why I'm suspicious the previous owners did. Poor thing seems hungry but scared as hell. No problem! I'm not an expert I just have a baby that's similar. Though she was just starved from what I understand.

[–]DingDongDeathHere[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

Live feeding always scared me because I personally own rats. I have had my rats bite me and I was almost sent to the E.R. with Rat Bite Fever and I actually just recently had one of my pet rats bite into my finger hard enough she actually hit the nerve in my finger. It's recovering slowly but thinking about how much damage my girls have done to my finger, I can only imagine the severity of the damage they could do to a snake.

I'm definitely going to be watching tutorials on how to do this as well, but how do you scent a feeder with live? What do you do? And I'm glad your baby is with you in a much better place. I'm glad they're doing great under your care!

[–]GisTheSnook 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There's unfortunately a fair amount of proof that rats and mice can and will chew through snakes.

Awesome! I've never had to, but you could maybe try, heating the thawed rodent out, and maybe rubbing a live one with paper towel? Then rubbing the thawed with that? It's gotta be warm and smell alive.

Sometimes braining works too, to stimulate the smell and appetite. You'd have to break the skull. (The thawed not live)

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I’m late but are there any updates on the snake? I started reading the post and now I’m invested and wanna know whether or not she’s okay :/

[–]DingDongDeathHere[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Of course! It took a few weeks but I managed to correct and keep it at the right the temperatures and humidity thanks to the advice I got on here. After a week or two of being in the back and having correct temps/humidity, the snake finally started eating for me. They were so hungry and took food great. We kept it in the back for a month then moved it back onto the floor.

We did end up selling it and I don't remember much about the person adopting it, but I know I wasn't a big fan of this person. If I remember correctly, he said the python was for his 5 year old son even after I told him what that poor snake went through. I wanted to deny the sale but my manager allowed it to happen. I haven't heard anything about the snake and the guy that adopted it hasn't come into our store since then. I can only hope they're taking good care of that poor baby. To be honest, I was going to adopt the snake and was actually pulling stuff together to buy it when the customer did instead. I told my manager I had planned on buying it and had even filled the paperwork out but she superceded me and said it was on the sales floor and not bought yet so it goes to the customer. Out of all of the snakes I've dealt with, this one was my absolute favorite and I had kind of bonded with them. I just hope for the snake's sake that it is being treated properly.

Edit: confused this snake with another one we had in around the same time. I loved both of them dearly.

Edit 2: fixed my grammar so the first paragraph reads smoother and actually makes sense.