Sounds like you bought yourself a non-feeding Blackhead. We only sell feeding baby Blackheads which makes it easy for everyone... especially the customer. Working with non-feeding baby Blackheads takes patience, knowledge and experience. Here are a few pointers....

First off...put the pinkie pump away (they need to swallow their food) and forget about scenting etc. Next raise your temps to 85 cool end and 95 warm end. Learn to assist feed and do it once a week. Also keep the handling to a minimum.

This is the deal on getting baby Black-heads to feed....there are no tricks as far as I know. You just have to wait them out and assist feed them once a week while doing so. They will eventually feed on their on their own schedule. I don't even attempt to feed hatchlings for at least eight to ten weeks as they are full of good nutritious yolk at birth. After one month I put a thawed small hopper mouse in the cool end of their shoebox. I do this once a week in the evening and leave it in overnight. I also remove the water bowl a day or two before feeding just so they can focus on the sight and smell of the food. Not sure this has anything to do with getting them to feed but seems to work for me. I remove uneaten food the next day and assist feed them with a fresh killed fuzzy/crawler mouse. I keep doing this until they eat voluntarily. Assist feeding is sometimes difficult becuse they'll spit it out/ drop it several times. If they do that a few times I use a smaller prey item and push it back a little further in the mouth then close their mouth and pull the food forward a bit to get their teeth hooked it. Then I quickly place them on a large table and back away slowly. They kind of go into a slight trance and start to begin to swallow. You'll know they are getting close to feeding on their own when all you have to do is put the food in their jaws and they take it. I used thawed rat pinks the first year but I don't think it really matters but you could alternate if you wanted to. They will eat eventually. Some babies feed a month after hatching and some are very stubborn and go for six months without feeding on their own The bottom line is they have to learn how to "dine" on their prey items though their own instincts. You, as the keeper, have to wait for their instincts to kick in and each animal has its own time schedule. The best advice I can give you is to just let it happen and don't worry about it. Your job is to keep them alive while they develop their love of food by assist feeding. It doesn't hurt to skip a few weeks either once in a while to get them really hungry. Patience and perserverence are they key. Once they start feeding on their own you are home free-they rarely miss another meal. Good luck.

Jim Sargent




Split Rock Reptiles

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