I need some help - I work at a petstore that really strives to take good care of our animals. We have an exotice animal vet that up until now has been very very good. We recently acquired 3 young central american boas that will not eat. They seem otherwise active and healthy. I have them seperated (to monitor feces, etc...) and in a seperate, quiet room. One has been there for two months and has been in and out of the vets office. They finally diagnosed them as "poor doer's" and sent them back to us! Useless diagnosis!

I remembered about a gentle method of force feeding by using mouse tails for baby corns that was posted on here not too long ago. I have been cutting the tails off F/T rats and feeding those the way it was demonstrated (except I feed so the hair lies flat when going down.) Anyway, is this going to be nutricious enough or do I need to try to force feed a solid pinkie or fuzzie. They are fuzzie sized snakes - perhaps 12 - 16 inches long. I fed them each a rat tail last friday, and then again yesterday eve. They are keeping them down and not regurgitating and their droppings seem normal.

Please don't slam petstores - this store has spent more money trying to help these snakes than they're even worth, so give them some credit. But now that the vet has given up on them, I am hoping that over time, they will start eating on their own. All our other snakes (red tailed boas included) are fantastic eaters and very healthy. These CA boas never ate from day one. Any advice would be great. They are obviously not going to be for sale until they're eating regularly (perhaps never at all - I may end up just adopting them and giving it a go), so lenghtly care is no big deal. We will try just about anything at this point.

[ Hide Replies ]

• who posted about force feeding mouse/rat tails? -msg - koashmar, Wed Sep 1 12:40:20 2004
• RE: who posted about force feeding mouse/rat tails? -msg - Amanda E, Wed Sep 1 13:51:30 2004
• When I attempted to force the pinky -msg - koashmar, Wed Sep 1 17:06:21 2004
• Bout pet shops - crtoon83, Wed Sep 1 22:51:48 2004
• I have.. - Gargoyle420, Wed Sep 1 22:55:50 2004
• That was me.. MORE - Marcel Poots, Thu Sep 2 11:22:53 2004