Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have this female yearling that is a PITA feeder. She almost always will strike the offered prey (f/k) and then constrict. Problem comes when it's time to actually swallow it. If it'a decent sized prey item, she drops it and leaves it. If it's a small prey item she only eats it if she struck the head. If she hits the body, again she drops it and leaves it. By small I mean hopper mouse when she should be eating weanling rats.

A trick I heard of and which is working great is to feed her that small prey item, let her start swallowing it. As the hips enter her mouth, I insert the head of the real feeder item into her mouth and she continues to swallow it along with the appetizer. The only problem is catching her at the right time, she's been known to constict her already dead prey for 20 minutes. In the meantime I've fed and cleaned all the rest of the hatchlings and yearlings, watching and waiting for her to start swallowing.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC)
0.2 kids (CBB, selectively bred from good stock)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
13.26 BRB
11.16 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

I have used the same trick on stubborn hatchlings of other species, but that isn't why I replied....

I was trying to go to your website and didn't type the full URL. If you leave out "reptiles", you get a very different website.
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Chris Harrison
San Antonio, Texas

LOL, when I tried to register rainbows-r-us it was taken but no site was up. So I added the -reptiles. Now I know who/what group had rainbows-r-us!
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC)
0.2 kids (CBB, selectively bred from good stock)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
13.26 BRB
11.16 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

This is a good trick to know. I haven't needed to use it with my female rainbow (she will eat anything I give her, probably eat my hand if I left it in range long enough). However I do have a couple ball pythons who are being extremely picky lately. I managed to get them to eat live mice which I follow with an appropriate sized pre killed or frozen thawed rat to give them a more filling meal without having to keep packs of live mice in my apartment.
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PHLdyPayne

your trick works well. what i have done is to just keep refeeding her while trying to get the head in her mouth nose first,that is in the swallowing position. then she will swallow it. dopey snake syndrome. Rin