Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have looked for months for any documentation on feeding baby pope's vipers to no avail. I even posted on here before about how to get non-eating pope's to eat and I never got any real answer. Here's the situation: I have 2 pope's vipers who would eat initially but only by assist feeding and it took about an hour for them to even accept food. Now only one is eating at all, and still being unbelievably difficult. I am trying every part of the mouse to get them to eat, heads, tails, feet,etc.. The other viper will not even hold food in his mouth for a moment. Neither have ever even tried to strike at me or any food item at all. Is this common with pope's? Is there any way to get them to eat? Even feeding a full size mouse tail down their throats it gets spit back up. The one who wont eat has not even unhinged his fangs in months for anything at all. This is starting to worry me as it seems there is no way to get him to eat. Is this snake a lost cause? Please somebody must have experienced this before, or could someone point me to some documentation on these vipers. Even the wikipedia article on them is pretty empty... it seems like there is no info on these snakes and their eating habits anywhere!

I've had good luck with lizards and geckos.

Feeding these guys (and lots of other arboreals) can be lots more of an "art" then a "science" They can be a royal pain in the rear (as if you didnt know that). Some things that have worked for me...

1- use just a pink head and try to get them to strike it. It sometimes seems that if the food item is heavy they dont want to hold it even though they could.

2- take the pink head in forceps and tap the neonate on the tail with it. For some reason this often elicits a strike when waving it around in front of them or touching the snakes head wont. I imagine its an instinctual response to something heading for the caudal lure.

3- put the pink head in hot water to heat it up and then try the above.

4- if they just wont strike, take another pair of forceps, pad the tips with bandaids or somesuch and hold the baby a bit behind the head (not right behind the head) then present the food with the other pair of forceps. Being restrained often elicits a strike response. (make sure you have long enough forceps to do this safely)

5- if all eles fails use a sponge or foam rubber to press the baby down with its head right at the edge of the pad and present the pink head to the front of its mouth and they usually will grab it. (mind your fingers!)

6- once you get the food in the animals mouth you need to get back and stay totally still in the hope they will swallow it. Sometimes you have to do this again, and again and again till you think it will never work.

I would not reccomend putting your hands on them to assist/force feed...the risk is just too high that you will slip up and have one attached to your finger. I have used a pinkie pump on baby Green Pit Vipers and it was way too close for comfort on several occasions. Its just not worth it.

Hope some of this helps

Peter
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Peter and Sara
Beouf River Reptiles

Very small frog or something that will keep moving in a little paper bag with small stick/limb with top folded up.Leave it in overnight.Or touch snake with pray animal lightly behind head/midbody.Good luck Vic

Peter and Sara made some excellent suggestions (as did the other post). Neonate popes, like many of this genus, tend to be lizard and frog eaters as babies in the wild. I've had luck scenting a head of a pink with my "lizard mix" and worked well. Patience will be your best asset right now as it takes a ton of patience. Many will strike, hold and let go...you just have to be persistent - it is definitely an art at times as you have to have the right "feel" when doing this. If you have access to live small anolis lizards or house geckos that could be a nice way to jump start a stubborn animal. I have also smeared a pink head with quail and that has worked.

You might want to contact Tim Cole at Austin Reptile Services as he breeds quite a few and might have some helpful hints as well.

Good luck.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center

>>I have looked for months for any documentation on feeding baby pope's vipers to no avail. I even posted on here before about how to get non-eating pope's to eat and I never got any real answer. Here's the situation: I have 2 pope's vipers who would eat initially but only by assist feeding and it took about an hour for them to even accept food. Now only one is eating at all, and still being unbelievably difficult. I am trying every part of the mouse to get them to eat, heads, tails, feet,etc.. The other viper will not even hold food in his mouth for a moment. Neither have ever even tried to strike at me or any food item at all. Is this common with pope's? Is there any way to get them to eat? Even feeding a full size mouse tail down their throats it gets spit back up. The one who wont eat has not even unhinged his fangs in months for anything at all. This is starting to worry me as it seems there is no way to get him to eat. Is this snake a lost cause? Please somebody must have experienced this before, or could someone point me to some documentation on these vipers. Even the wikipedia article on them is pretty empty... it seems like there is no info on these snakes and their eating habits anywhere!
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

I agree with just about everything others have said already on this subject, I'll just tweak the emphasis.

These animals don't naturally eat mice (heads, legs, tails, whatever) while they're small. If you were dealing with something really precious (T. mcgregori or something) it might be worth fighting nature. But you're not, so just go with the animals' wishes and save them and yourself a LOT of stress. Snakes are quite capable of learning (especially about food!), and you're quite capable of teaching, but...pick your battles, seriously.

My advice - feed them all the live frogs and lizards they can eat. You'll be stunned at the growth rate, especially if you have a female. You'll also be impressed with, once they get their predatory groove on, just how large a prey item they can subjugate and consume. A 7-inch "trim" can kill & swallow a fat 5-inch anole in about 10 minutes, no problem. But don't try to start with large prey items, they need to learn they're killers first. They can be pretty shy at first, so offer them small items that aren't as intimidating when they run and jump around. And offer food at night at first. You'll know they're hungry when they perch with their heads pointing down (looking for something to walk by).

Once your animals are 12 inches long or so, you can try a live pinky in the bottom of the cage. Scent it with their normal fare. And again, do it at night. After a couple feedings they'll probably accept unscented, any time of day. From there, frozen-thawed off forceps is not far behind. I suggest you use a tool at least as long as the snake, they have quite a reach. The most dangerous part of keeping arboreal vipers, in my experience, is feeding them off forceps.

Good luck, these are highly rewarding animals once you get them going. Until then, they're hell, as you've already seen.

Jimi Gragg

That's good advice.
I might add, when feeding pinks off forceps, once they strike and hold on, (may take several attempts) It's imperative to "freeze", stay very still as movement causes them to get distracted and they will drop it. After about 10 times taking it successfully off forceps, they will eat like clockwork and you can move from cage to cage and "chain feed" a clutch of babies.

Randal Berry

Re: not moving, yep, absolutely - particularly if the keeper chooses to go the "hard way" and fight the snake's nature.

If you just feed them live prey until they get pretty beefy (pencil-thick, almost foot long), I've found they're not as weirded-out by movement, especially at night.

For those hell-bent or forced by circumstance (e.g., the mcgregori example) on "the hard road" (tease-feeding), the best advice I can give is to set yourself up with something comfortable to sit on, and that gives you a place to set your elbows so you don't have to move your hands *at all* once you get the little bugger(s) to hang onto a piece of meat. The worst way to go is to crane yourself into an awkward position when offering the food, then be forced to hold that pose for an eternity while the snake decides whether to spit or swallow. This often happens if you've set the animal up in an elaborate cage on a taller shelf in the snake room (pers. exp.), and you fail to extract the animal from said cage for feeding. Go ahead and pull him out. Actually, this would be a form of conditioning (teaching) the animal: "when you come out you get fed" - not a bad thing.

I like a chair or stool (for me) and a little table (for the snake). Give the snake a perch - I find they spit less if they're hanging onto a perch (e.g., lip of a tall deli cup) with their tail and their head is dangling, than when they're just laying on the table.

I also like a dim light source behind the snake, so they're dimly lit but I'm sitting more in the dark.

A *very* gross generalization of my experience with ease of tease-feeding the principal arboreal genera would be:
Atheris - love them, most are easy, good place to learn tease-feeding would be chlorechis (the body-restraint trick mentioned earlier this thread works great with this genus, I find)
Bothriechis - OK, can be fairly easy, or a royal pain
Trimeresurus (broad sense) - very often, make me want to pull my hair out; some consistent exceptions (e.g., borneensis/puniceus complex)

Sorry Sanchez38, this may not be the best news. Go with the frogs!

Cheers,
Jimi

Jimi,
Good post. I USE live acris on trouble Trimersurus to get some size on them, but rarely. 90% of the time I get them to take day-old pinks after several tries. Patience is the key word. LOL! (and people that know me will tell you I'm not blessed with it.)
Baby Trimersurus I have raised were, albolabris, trigons,stegnegeri,poperium,macrops and gumphrechi.

I do use acris on newborn Bothrops and Protobothrops, they scarf them down. I get enough diameter size on them that will accept scented pinkies. After a few times (scented) they start taking un-scented without any problems.

Randal Berry

Thanks to everyone that posted! I just went out and bought some house geckos and tree frogs (unfortunatly i had to pay "pet" prices- $7 a peice) and introduced them to the vipers... nothing as of yet but hopefully they will grab onto one of these potential food items... Ill let you know how it turns out.

-Andrew

In my experience tree frogs are mostly ignored and cricket frogs and peepers seem to be the key.

Randall-

I hope you've found a better system than I have for collecting those Acris! Are the Texas cricket frogs a lot more agile than those up north, or am I just getting old?
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Brad Chambers
WWW.HCU-TX.ORG

The Avalanche has already started-it is too late for the pebbles to vote....

Brad,
I really like you, and your a great vendor at my San Antonio show!
That being said, uhh, your getting old dude!

However, (insert disclaimer here), I am old too, so I have young punks like Snakesandstuff (Bobby Neal) collect acris for me!

I can see 9 right in front of me, and when I bend down to scoop them with my net, all I come up with is air! LOL! So, I just promise Bobby a few cold beer's and he collects me ton's of acris!
Pretty good deal for me and my snakes, and keeps me outta the orthopedic's office!

Randal