Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I GOT A BABY OR HATCHLING LYRE SNAKE FROM A LCOAL PET STORE. THEY SAID IT WAS EATING PICS. IT HAD NO INTEREST IN A SMALL BRAINED PINKY OR IN A LIZARD ANY TIPS. THANKS TODD

How long have you had it? Sometimes snakes take quite a while to settle in before they're comfortable enough to eat. Wait a week or 10 days to let it get settled and then offer a pinky. Make sure you give the snake some privacy. If it doesn't take it, wait and try again. You could offer lizards but then, you may have trouble getting it to switch back to rodents later.

Lyre snakes often feed only on lizards. I've switched them over to rodents by scenting the rodents, and I currently have one that eats defrosted mice just like a kingsnake. Lyre snakes don't eat as much as kings or ratsnakes, though, and once you get yours eating rodents, it may only eat once a month. While it's eating lizards, be prepared to feed it often--there just doesn't seem to be as much meat on a lizard as on a mouse.

I agree that it may take a couple of week for it adjust and start eating. I wouldn't trust the petstore when they say that it was eating for them. If someone at a petstore tells me a snake is eating, I say show me, if they can't get it eat I say forget it. If after 2-3 weeks he doesn't go for the pinkies, try lizards, frogs, fish. Many lizard and frog eaters will go for a flopping minnow. Personally I don't recomend that you try and switch him to pinkies if he doesn't go for them right away. Baby snakes require alot of food to grow and to be healthy. Long periods of fasting should be avoided. If you are trying to switch him to a food that is not natural he will most likely eat less and less often. An adult well adjusted, well feed, is the best specimen for switching to a substitute food.

Arizona lyre's are totally nocturnal. And are the last snake found for the night. I keep mine in a rack behind my bedroom door.78 degrees and very little light. They do awesome. I put a pinky in with them every 5 to 7 days. Some eat it the first time.But others
go as long as 8 weeks before they eat. But they always eat. I have
never had to feed lizards. I wish I could say that about baby
speckled rattlesnakes.lol Good luck!

We got some WC juvies a few years ago to start our breeding project and of 6, all came around over the course of about 10 weeks and ate pinks or fuzzies except one. But the smallest was 16 inches. The babies we hatched several weeks ago are tiny...they were all between 3.6-4.1 grams upon hatching and basically look like extreme corn snake runts.
None of ours have eaten pinkies and they are currently being force fed mouse tails to keep them going. I figure that once they get the yummy feeling in their bellies a few times, they may just decide to take 'em on their own.
I have yet to find someone that actually got a hatchling to feed voluntarily. I am sure it has been done of course, but I have found no one that has tried to raise hatchlings. Everyone's experiences seem to be based on WC juveniles or subadults that are already quite a bit larger than a hatchling and were obviously already feeding on something somewhere.
-Yasser
SPITFIRE...Brand Spankin' New Website

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"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti

I hear what your saying. Three of the wc lyre's are very small.
But not as small as new babies. I have had great secession with getting snakes to eat by cooling them down in the fall. Most people don't cool snakes down unless they are big enough to breed.
I cool down all my breeder size snakes and any problem feeders.
Works Great!!

Cooling has worked well for us in the past with stubborn feeders like some baby Rosy Boas and W. Hognose snakes. I figure I will do the smae with these guys if they don't start feeding on their own. But in the meantime I have to give 'em something to tide them over because it probably won't get cool enough around here until at least October.
-Yasser
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"If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough."
- Mario Andretti