This is not unheard of for this time of the year. Even if you keep the temperatures up for your snakes, there is a conjectural belief that snake also sense changes in barometric pressures which can cause behavioral changes such as going off of food and wanting to brumate despite constant temperature changes. But like I said, that is all conjecture based on individual experiences.



My advice is to stop forcefeeding and just monitor the snake as long as the snake doesn't appear unhealthy or is losing any significant amount of weight, especially showing folds in the skin. If it is maintaining it's weight to around 90% of what it normally weighs then it is probably ok.



A natural course of action is to make sure the snake is empty and perhaps cool it down so that it can go through a type of brumation process if possible. This has often times been reported to bring about a healthy feeding response after a cooling period. One benefit to cooling also is that it slows the metabolism of the snake so weight loss won't be so drastic unlike when it is kept in warmer environments.



In regards to the comment "there is no reason to force feed(assist feed) any captive hatched snake. No good can come from that and only harm will occur.", that is entirely incorrect and false! There is no evidence at all that "only harm will occur", this type of conjecture is really based on nothing but ignorance. The truth is, some snakes need to be force fed for a matter of reasons, some that get sick for whatever reason, others that are wild caught and need to be weaned onto a specific more common food source, etc. There are lots of reasons really, and no known ill effects have been observed unless the procedure was not done properly or the snake has other problems that has less to do with force feeding and more to do with other health problems. Many a herpetological veterinary book even outline the methods for successful force feeding methods.



There are also instances of hatchlings that refuse to eat pinkies initially. Now, some people will either cull those specimens or let them starve to death. Over the years, I have observed that some Westerns don't seem to understand the concept of eating, they see a pinky in front of them, they are interested, they poke and roll it around but eventually get tired of this exercise and move on. My observation for this behavior is that when this happens, I never see the snake open it's mouth, as if it doesn't know why it should. It seems that once they "learn" how to do this, feeding usually commences on a regular basis. One trick to get them to do this on their own is to spray water onto the pinky so that the snake will drink from it which can in turn cause it to open it's mouth on it's own causing it to actually eating the pinky. I've done this several times with success but not all individuals are turned this way. A similiar method to this is also braining. However, there are those individuals that need a more forceful effect...



Over the years, I have adopted and improved a method of force feeding hatchlings that refuse to eat until they are weaned onto eating pinky mice on their own. With the exception of a few individuals that had other physical problems/deformities, I proudly have had a 100% success rate using my method on Westerns which basically consists of using a gavage needle, beef baby food and experience. Some babies only need to be treated once or twice until they take to eating on their own while others can take a couple of months, but once they turn, they are strong eaters and ultimately healthy snakes. One thought as to why some might turn after one or two treatments is that it might be a matter of getting the bowels going; once they defecate, they have a hunger that usually triggers a feeding response. Some individuals are also very small which might be another trigger response problem, perhaps the food item appears to be too daunting a task. With those individuals that weigh 4 grams or under, I usually witness that once I get them up to 5-7 grams from force feeding, they are more prone to eating on their own. Other more stubborn individuals is hard to ascertain why they refuse to eat on their own for long periods of time. One particular male I hatched out needed to be forcefed for almost 3 months on pure baby food. Once he finally hit about 14 grams, he became a very aggressive eater and is now almost 4 years old and proven breeder. He obviously has suffered none of the supposed bad effects of force feeding as was suggested earlier.



Anywho, like I stated earlier, unless drastic physical deviations are witnessed, it's sometimes better to do nothing with snakes that were eating regularly before than to start on a force feeding regimen. Hognose can be notorious for going off of food for months at a time with no ill effects.
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Troy Rexroth

Rextiles

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