We tried to feed Spectre another adult mouse this afternoon. He showed some interest in it at first, and I was hopeful, but then he did the strangest thing...he put his head completely under one side of the mouse and then shoved it around all over the feeding box with his head like he was playing mouse hockey or something. What does THAT mean?

After doing that a while, he got bored and ignored it. I told Maggie to go get one of the fuzzies we'd thawed for another snake, and we put that in front of Spectre. After caaaaaarefully smelling it all over, he picked it up by the butt, waved it around, and then put it down. Then he picked it up a second time, by the butt again, and went to town with it, swallowing it backwards and vertically. Well, I did what you said, Merlin, and waited at the ready with the adult mouse...as soon as he was down to the head of the fuzzy, I put the head of the adult mouse against the fuzzy's nose. Spectre tried to back up a little in the feeding box because he didn't like my holding it there, but he kept right on swallowing until lo and behold, he's now full of adult mouse plus one fuzzy appetizer! Hooray! Thank you so much for all the advice! Hope we don't have to do that every time though...

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~Juliane~

Thats great news Juliane, I am so glad he ate for you, glad the fuzzy mouse trick worked, heehee

Thats great Juliane! You may have to do the same thing a time or two untill he gets the idea. Hopefully this will kick him into eating the larger item!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Do you guys have snakes that stick their heads under their prey and then shove it all over the place that way for several minutes? Is it common for them to play with their food? I thought that was very peculiar...

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~Juliane~

I have a few that will do this. It usually indicates to me that they are not very hungry at that moment. If they are hungry they usually hit immediately.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

Yep same here - the snakes often play with their food.. I've found this to be a common thing with the corn snakes; one of our females used to do this almost every meal before eventually eating. I saw it as that she was either playing or checking out the food to make sure it was what she wanted, perhaps making sure it was dead and checking where to start eating it from.

Glad Spectre ate.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004

YIPPEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It's about time that spoiled boy eats his mouse! LOL

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Some think they can. Some wish they could. Some do.

thats great news! congrats!

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yes i am a she ^_^

~My Babies~

1 Rosy Boa (male) Chaos
1 Snow Corn (male) Blizzard
1 Anertherystic Corn (male) Bullet
1 Senegal Parrot (male) Shadow
2 dogs (male) Spot and Bear

Juliane, it's snake psychology 101! Spectre was saying:
"Get out of my feeding box, you dirty rat! I'm waiting for my fuzzie!"

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Wish list: Blue Tongue Skinks and Uruplatus =)

That's funny! Now that you mention it, it did look as though he was trying to push the thing out of there!

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~Juliane~