I agree with Brian....more

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Posted by klank4d on April 29, 2003 at 18:38:11:

In Reply to: You run a 33% chance of running into this problem,. more posted by BrianSmith on April 29, 2003 at 14:45:56:

My limited experience with retics (4 over the past 2 years) has not borne out the "voracious appetite" reputation of the retic. A baby tiger was shipped back to the breeder after refusing to eat for 9 weeks, a 10' tiger was purchased and resold after 8 weeks of abstinence (the buyer was aware of the non-eating), and my nearly 10' supertiger has never been a good feeder. He'll be 2 years old in June and he isn't 10' yet. He's such a fastidious feeder that he'll get nose to nose with a dangled rat and flick it for several seconds before taking it. And he does just that...takes it...never strikes it. Now once in feed mode, he has taken a rabbit ONCE. However, the last 5 or 6 feedings he has struck, wrapped, and subsequently let go of the rabbit and could not be enticed to take it again. My wife has, with noted protest, reluctantly agreed to try the sew-the-head-to-the-butt trick next week (thanks for the tip, Brian...my wife hates you!).
On the other hand, my purple (and my burm) is a delightful feeder. She took her first 1.5 lbs f/t rabbit that I laid in her cage last night without so much as a "Step back away from the cage please so I can eat, Fat Boy!"

Take care,
Kevin Lankford

:I say 33% chance because 1 out of every 3 of my retics won't readily shift to rabbits. (usually). This holds true with my supers, my tigers, my albinos and any other phase that I currently have that are any combination of the three. This fact does not trouble me much as I simply accept it and trick the retics into taking the rabbits. I just did this about 10 minutes ago before logging on. My largest female albino retic only likes rats. And while I COULD afford to feed her a diet solely made up of rats, I certainly don't have to. She is quite large and could easily pack in 20 to 25 jumbo rats in a sitting. This would not only be much more expensive, it would also be more time consuming. So I 'whack' a rat and rub it's saliva on the rabbit's nose, squeeze some rat pee onto it's forehead, and give the rabbit to her. She smells rat and mows down. With some of my girls this doesn't always work and I have to offer them the rat and switch it for the rabbit at the last second. And in the most extreme difficult circumstances I sew the rat onto the rabbit's nose with white cotton thread (biodegradable and no dyes). Burmese can sometimes be like this, but it is much more rare and even when they are they tend to outgrow it by the time they are 6 or 7 feet and they readily switch over. I have never had any problems getting rock pythons to accept whatever is available. They are the true eating machines of the python realm. All in all though, my BEST eaters are those few pythons or boas that I acquired as adults that were raised in a very food deprived existance. They are the most voracious eaters. My theory is that after years of scarce and infrequent meals few and far between they are in the 'mindset' to eat whatever comes their way, just in case there isn't another meal for a very long time.
: Anyhoo,. hope this helps.

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::Chances are very low you will get a retic that does not like rabbits. I do know some people with a retic that do not eat rabbits but it is quite rare. Retics are bigger food monsters than burms. ;-)

::Marcel

:::Hey guys I was just wondering if it was to get RETICS that are large enough onto thawed rabbits..

:::I remember when I had my burmese pythons a few years back I had one that NEVER EVER would take a rabbit, but would eat a BUCKET of thawed rats one after another during a feeding..

:::Thanx.
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