About a month ago I purchased a pair of baby eastern king snakes. Since then I haven't been able to get the male to eat ANYTHING. I don't think I'm doing anything wrong since all of my other snakes (3 corn snakes and 2 eastern kingsnakes, including a baby kingsnake that I purchased at the same time as the non-eating male) are eating thawed mice like champions.

Additionally, I notice that non-eating snakes is actually a thing and I've looked up ways to get a snake to eat. Things I've tried:

1) "Braining" the mice.

2) Feeding in a "deli cup".

3) Feeding in the normal enclosure.

4) Scenting the mice with a lizard.

5) Trying to feed the snake actual lizards.

6) Trying to feed the snake live pinky mice instead of thawed.

So far, no eating. The weird thing is, the snake appears to respond to the scent of mice. Putting mice in the enclosure seems to get the snake to more actively investigate that area. But then the snake just plain won't eat. It's almost as if the snake recognizes that there's something there, but then just doesn't recognize the actual mouse as food.

I wasn't initially that concerned. And after I started to be concerned, my hope was that it would take a mouse after it shed its skin (assuming that it had enough stored fat to grow without eating). I notice that my other snakes get hungrier after shedding their skin so I was hoping that would be enough to get it to at least take one mouse. And that hopefully it would take more mice after recognizing one as food.

But no luck. My snake still hasn't eaten ANYTHING and still hasn't shed its skin. It's also starting to get skinny, to the point where it has loose folds of skin near the tail.

Is there anything I haven't tried yet? Is there anything else I can do to get this snake to eat, or is it just likely one of the "defective" snakes that just plain refuses food until it dies?

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