I know non-feeding Royals is a subject that has been covered once or twice before:lol2: and i've searched the archives but i still can't really find what i'm looking for so sorry!
Now i realise that Royals can be finicky feeders and alot of this is down to poor husbandry, overhandling, WC, CF etc etc.
Putting this aside however, is the trate generally mostly confined to certain individuals who are somehow born more suseptable than others (perhaps predetermined in the egg) or is it more or less something that can and will often affect any individual at some point in its life, regardless of how it started out.
Basically, if a Royal starts out as a poor feeder, are they nearly always the ones that relapse and give the species the reputation of poor feeders and conversely, if a Royal starts out eating regularly and consistantly would it more than likely to remain that way (assuming correct husbandry was maintained) for the rest of it's life or would that be far from certain?
No i believe that a poor feeder can eat perfectly fine for the rest of its life once its established. Just the same as excellent feeders can go off their food for a while.
This however, is just my personal opinion.
Ah, that's pretty much what i had thought would be the case. Thanks.
This is probably a bit of a difficult follow-up question to answer but can anyone say approximately what percentage of good-feeding young Royals will go off their food for extended periods at some point in their lives?
I think most royals will go off at some point in their life.
It might be for a month or two, it could be for a year.
Its not natural for them to eat every 5-10 days anyway and its not something i would be overly concerned with so long as the snakes are healthy and happy.
Edit: I would like to add that I think its a high % like 80-90% of royals. There are some who never go off their food. Some will do after 3 years, some after 18 months.
That doesn't sound too bad when you put it that way.
Reason for all the questions is that i had decided on getting a Corn for a first snake but suddenly started wondering about Royals again.
I'll have to do some more thinking as i'm not sure if i'd feel bad about throwing lots of uneaten food away whereas you rarely hear about non-feeding Corns (grown up ones anyway!). Decisions decisions...:hmm:
Yep tops is right. Pretty much all royals (regardless of wether gd feeders as youngsters or not) will go off there food at some point....alot of this fasting in older royals is put down to the breeding season...IE - My male decided he wanted a female so didnt eat for 8 months!!! It drove me insane but once he started again I was happy lol
You dont have to offer weekly.
If your concerned about the cost of 30 rodents maybe a snake isnt the best pet for you.
You would be paying for them whether the snake is eating or not
Cost wasn't the issue, it's just that if the rodent was raised and killed for food, it would be nice to have it eaten rather than it's life wasted. If i only kept one snake, i wouldn't have anything else to feed uneaten rodents to and i'm not eating them lol.
I'm glad we got that sorted, i didn't want to fall out with anyone over it
The more i think about it, as much as i'd love to own a Royal, i have to be honest to myself and say that if there's a high probability of significant fasting periods and wasted rodents, i'd start to get upset which wouldn't be good for me or the snake! A Corn snake was probably the right choice after all.
Oh and you were right, i would be buying frozen- i wasn't clear about that either:lol2:
Cheers, Matt
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