Emerald Tree Boa Feeding Tips & Techniques

While providing adequate detail, my hope is to supply this information without being too longwinded. The ideas contained herein, while not of my own invention, are offered for intelligent evaluation, in hopes of providing a glimpse at the wealth of knowledge now openly available to everyone from some of the most experienced keepers in the world. The techniques described are a conglomeration of information gathered from various sources which only a few short years ago would have taken many years to amass.

After housing concerns have been satisfactorily addressed, the next step to establishing Emeralds, to a life of captivity, is to get them comfortable and confident enough with their situation to begin feeding. This usually means "Hands Off"! Regardless of their origins, all new acquisitions should be quarantined for a minimum of 90 days. Aside from helping safegaurd your collection, this period also allow the animal time to adjust and gain a sense of security in its new surroundings without invasion or intrusion. Keepers should insure that temperature and humidity levels are kept at optimum, and diligently watch and wait for the animal to begin signing its' readiness to take the next step. When the animal is ready it will begin/resume hunting its enclosure. Depending on the individual animal, this signal may be as subtle as simply hanging down in the common ambush "S" position, or as elaborate as hours of actively searching every inch of its enclosure. Whichever it is, a keeper must be patient and willing to wait until such time as the kept displays it's willingness to move onto the next step.

Learning how and what triggers the animals' "instinctive" feeding response is the first step. Once understood, this knowledge can be used to establish optimal feeding patterns. These patterns will then become the key to modifying the animals' behavior.

For the baby Emerald, opportune feeding is a learned skill. Although instinct is certainly the major factor, it is through early feeding experiences that the neonates broaden their associations and recognition of feeding opportunities. It is this process, that as keepers, we wish to expand upon.

Newly learned cues can, over a short period of time, be used to replace the instinctive "trigger" mechanisms. This will allow the animal to be fed a wider variety of prey items, and expand its receptiveness enabling feeding to take place on a different, more convenient and optimally beneficial schedule.

With newborns keeper often begin to attempt feeding within the first week of birth. While this may infrequently prove successful on the odd neonate it is best to RESIST this temptation. Although some individuals may be receptive early on, the majority will not respond until well after their first shed which usually occurs within about two weeks after birth. The best forumula for initial success is to wait a full week after the first slough before attempting to initiate feeding. Employing this technique insures that the majority of the litter, having had time to fully digest their internalized yolk reserves, will be receptive to this new stimuli and therefore begin to feed immediately.

Begin by offering a thawed pink rat pup warmed to approximately 120-130F. Warming can be achieved by either floating in hot water or holding the offering closely under a heat lamp. The hot water method, although more efficient, tends to "cook" the item through quickly if the water is too hot (above 150F). Much attention should be paid to just getting the food up to temperature without cooking it. Once there, immediately offer the food from below the perched neonate. Hold the item directly in front of the snakes' face at the ends of some long forceps. Attempt to keep your own heat signature out of the picture. The idea is to "flood" the babies heat receptors with information from only the food offering. If not taken immediately by the animal, moving the food about in sharp small movements or even annoying the Emerald by poking at it with the food item may be necessary. Reactions can vary widely. Some animals will strike and coil immediately, while others will take quite a while, investigating at close range, tongue flicking closely or directly on the food item. After a period of close inspection, some will slowly open their mouths and take the item in a rather timid manner. Still others will begin to back away or even run having apparently either lost interest or become intimidated by the offering. For the timid feeders knowing when to let go of the food and allowing them to take over can be tricky. These animals will often drop the food and you will be forced to start over. In the case of the runners, it will be necessary to re-warm the offering and start from scratch, however, runners, at this early stage, are generally not ready to feed. Success for even the most persistent and patient of keepers is doubtful with a runner during this initial session.

One should count on spending fifteen minutes per sessions per animal, sometimes less for the obviously reluctant animals such as runners. Taking care not to exceed this amount of time should prevent undue stress and negative associations from becoming imprinted on the animal. Those that don't respond during the first session should be tried again once before their first shed, but no less than 4 days after the initial attempt, and for those that continue to resist, again two days after their first shed.

The advantages to having animals that do respond to this technique are great. These animals become well started and avoid ever having to be weaned away from live prey. Becoming initially imprinted on rat pups as a food source, instead of hopper mice, makes any future mouse to rat transition unnecessary. Early feeders get a jumpstart on the rest of the pack, tending to be healthier more aggressive, dominant and secure animals able to tolerate a wider range of stimuli and change without stress. All of these traits prove invaluable to keepers intending to breed or freqently handle their animals.

For those animals that simply refuse to turn on to frozen thawed offerings, it will be necessary to step up a stimulus array using live prey. The most frequent mistake made by keepers is attempting to feed neonate Emeralds pink mice/rats as a food item. The problem here is that pinkies do not emit enough of the necessary stimuli to "turn on" the Emeralds. Unfurred mice and rates are cooler than their furry brethren. They don't move around nearly enough to draw the attention of even a hunting Emerald, and they are, as a defense mechanism, devoid of smell having not yet developed active anal glands and being constantly groomed by the female in order to minimize scent and escape detection from possible predators. For these reasons it is important to bypass pinkies and even crawlers of any kind, and go immediately with "hopper mice". Most hoppers are already weanlings, which means they will be much more active than crawler mice or rats, but still very small. Being fully furred and partially responsible for grooming themselves means they will be warm enough and smelly enough for your snake to detect. So here we have the perfect starter item. A small, warm, active, smelly little mammal. Just the perfect thing to send those feeding instincts into high gear.

Offer the hopper (or for a virtually irresistable lure try fuzzy Dwarf Hampsters {Phodopus Sungorus}) from within a restricted area inside your Emeralds small enclosure. The ideal setup has your neonate or sub-adult snake in a small 6 to 12 inch high shoebox type enclosure with a perch traversing the entire enclosure directly over the middle at the 5 to 8 inch level. This allows the snake to stay well above and safely away from anything moving around on the cage floor, yet still keeps it within a comfortable striking range.

Approximately two hours after sundown, hereby incorporating the animals natural crepuscular tendencies, place a hopper mouse inside a lidless deli cup sized container, directly beneath the Emeralds perch. Now disappear! Your presence will only act to distract the animal. It sometimes helps to loosely cover the enclosure with a towel to prevent outside movement and other distractions from allowing the snake to concentrate on the task at hand. Return every 10 to 20 minutes to check on any progress or for possible problems. Normally this method will result in success, if not during its first use, usually by the second or third session. Each session should last no more than 2 hours and should be spaced 3 to 4 days apart. Also, one can vary the time of the offering during subsequent sessions, making it slightly later with each subsequent offering.

As a last ditch effort to keep a baby or sub-adult from untenable decline, I will if necessary assist feed the animal. This I do very reluctantly as I believe it to be traumatic and usually avoidable. However, there are those hard cases that require the occasional extreme measure, and the method for assist feeding has been very eloquently and specifically documented by Stan Chiras. Rather than re-invent the wheel, I have provided a link to the web page on Stan's site. He is much more experienced than I with this method, and has provided a very through guide for those that find it necessary to lend a hand. Should Stan at some point choose to remove the paper from his site, or for any reason take the site down, I will seek his permission to reprint the paper here on my site. Until such time as that happens, which I sincerely hope never does, you can find the definitive text on assist feeding of neonates at Assist Feeding by Stan Chiras.

One of the most common questions about ETB husbandry is "when should I begin to worry about my new Emerald not feeding?" The answer to this question is of course not universal or fixed. Many variables will determine the actual condition of your animal and that conditioning is what ultimately determines how long a fast any individual animal can endure. For the purposes here however, we will assume that the animal in question is about a sub or young adult in perfect condition with adequate body weight and well hydrated. Such an animal should for all intents and purposes, be able to maintain a fast of 4 to 6 months and show virtually no signs of being impacted by it. Emerald metabolism is among the slowest if not "the" slowest in all of Serpentus. It has long been suspected that in the wild, these animals feed on an irregular and infrequent basis and fast for long periods of time as a matter of their course of everyday life. A generally healthy specimen, if allowed time to acclimate, will begin to feed on it's own time table, and absolutely "will NOT starve itself to death".

For one reason or another, some Emeralds fail to emerge from the box tame, hungry and ready to inhale food offerings much to the displeasure of their new keepers. For such animals a simple regiment has proven itself very effect to get them going. Once the animal has had adequate time to accustom itself with it's new surroundings, it will begin to display behaviors indicative of it's possible receptiveness to food offerings. During the early stages after having reached a general comfort level, the animal will begin to hang down in the classic ambush position. This position is a head down observation friendly posture, with the first third of the body drawn in an "S" shape curved loop, affording the animal an ample strike range and killing zone. When this behavior is first observed it is time to begin feeding trials.

These early attempts at feeding will help keepers determine at what level of cognitive recognition, in this case being the animals ability to recognize offerings meant for it's consumption as food, the animal has reached. Initial offerings should be small (relative to the animals size) prey items, warmed to approximately 120-150F. Warming in this case should be achieved by immersion in very hot but not boiling water . This hot water method, is far more efficient than other methods such as heat lamp warming, but will "cook" the item through quickly if the water is too hot (above 160F) and close attention is not paid to insure against over heating. Once the food offering is up to temperature, offer it immediately, preferably from a position below the perched animal if at all possible. Holding the item directly in front of the snakes' face at the ends of some long forceps, while keeping your own heat signature out of the picture works best. The idea here, just as with neonate feeding, is again to "flood" the animals heat receptors. Hopefully this will cause the instinctive urge to feed to override the less immediate instict toward self preservation, and trigger the feeding mechanism. If the offering is not taken immediately, moving the food about in sharp, short, jerky movements or try annoying the Emerald by poking at it with the prey item. Should the animal begin running however, unlike in chondropython neonate feeding, the chances for success become greatly diminished, and it is very unlikely that an Emerald will take the offering. If this happens, the session should be terminated, opting for a later and hopefully more responsive reaction next time. This technique can be attempted on several consecutive nights if the animal is observed to be in a receptive posture. Should two of three such sessions not produce the desired result, you have pretty well determined that your animal will need a greater degree of natural stimulation in order to recognize intended prey.

Live prey, "the natural trigger", is at once, less convenient, less safe, and generally less desirable for both keeper and kept alike. However, in an effort to acclimate a new arrival, it is often necessary to use a live prey item to kick-start the animals feeding instincts. Live presentations are best done within a confined space as outlined above in the section concerning neonate feeding with live prey. To further elaborate as concerns the application of larger prey, the space should still remain relatively confined. Adequate perching must be provided assuring that the snake has the ability to retreat to the safety of an elevated perch and escape contact with the live prey, while still allowing it the opportunity to reach the entire floor space available to the prey item. Further, any and all cage floor obstructions should be removed, allowing the prey no oppertunity to hide. Once again, the natural crepuscular tendencies of the Emerald should be leveraged and prey should be presented only after the snake becomes active and beings it's ambush/hunting behavior. Lastly, domestic rats and mice may prove unfamiliar and therefore resistable prey species. Dwarf hamsters (generally inexpensive and readily available at most local petshops) have proven extraordinarily good for initiating feeding response in reluctant feeders. Subsequent to the second or third feeding using the dwarf hamsters generally any rodent introduced will be readily accepted.

Normally after an animal has fed on live prey for some time, it is appropriate to attempt to change them over to a diet of pre-killed, or frozen thawed foods. In a great many cases, especially with animals described as "ravenous feeders", keepers will meet with very little resistance to this change, and their charges will submit readily by accepting the pre-killed offerings without hesitation. In the cases of those that don't literally grab the food off the tongs instantly, one can begin by using the "Super Heated" method. The effect of this is exactly the same as outlined above and most, in fact the great majority of animals, will respond to super heated prey immediately. For animals failing to respond to super heated prey items after several attempts, it is advised to attempt to start them with first stunned and later, when stunned is readily accepted, fresh killed items both of which should be offered on tongs.

Once again, the most vital key to feeding Emeralds is patience and persistence. The great majority of animals will eventually get it, and begin to feed on the pre-killed offerings. As for the rest, my suggestion is that there are NO live only feeders, only feeders who haven't yet gotten with the program, so "Never give up, never surrender".