As you may know force feeding (FF) should be ONLY be used as a absolute last resort after ALL other feeding tricks have failed..

Assuming you have tried all the tricks you may want to first try "assist feeing".. By this i mean putting the head of a small pinky into the snakes mouth & waiting to see if the hatchling takes the rest of the pink on its own.

If this fails try to FF a mouse tail.. It is much easier than trying to FF a whole pinky.

You can do this by cutting off the tail off a pre-killed or thawed mouse (my attempt at humanity), then cut a section of the tail about an inch long, then wet the section you plan to feed so that is slides in more easily.. Then using the section of tail gently pry open the snakes mouth and slip the tail into the snakes mouth..

Hope this helps & GOOD LUCK!!

~ Mike Russo

[ Show Entire Thread ]