The first of the Cujo baby red coachwhips to accept a meal all by herself ate a newborn pink mouse this morning. She hatched on July 20 and shed her neonatal shed on July 28. I offered her anoles and live pink mice several times but when she started losing too much weight I began my usual strategy of forcing mouse tails into her throat. Mouse tails go down pretty easily and are difficult to regurge since the hair catches in the throat.

Before long, she would strike and swallow a mouse tail voluntarily while held. Then I fed her defrosted pink mice for a while; as with the mouse tails she would strike and swallow voluntarily while held. Eventually I could put her down and she would finish swallowing while out of my hand. It's a learning curve--associating mouth and throat use with satisfying hunger.

Today I put live pink mice into several of the baby coachwhip cages, a routine part of the process of getting the snakes to eat solo. As in the past, one day they just....eat. Maybe they finally make the association between mouth and stomach, maybe they just gain enough strength to feel confident about striking something with the intent to swallow it.

At any rate, after a few minutes I checked back to find her swallowing her meal. This is the first time in her life she's hunted, attacked and swallowed anything. One of her siblings is still not feeding voluntarily but the other two have taken live anoles all by themselves.

Once a coachwhip starts feeding regularly, it's not uncommon for them to be feeding fiends, eating nearly every day. A new class of labor for the keeper--first sweat over getting them started then struggle to keep up. Why did I think keeping snakes would be easier than having children? At least they don't borrow the car when they get older--wait a minute--where are my keys? Cujo!! Get back here! You don't have any thumbs....!

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