Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Just wanted to give you guys an update on my litter of Guyanan Rainbow boas. I tried all of your guys suggestions with no luck. After three and a half months of not eating I figured that without food these guys were dead anyway, and I resorted to drastic measures. I started gently forcefeeding them. At first they were understandably very resistant to this. During the 5 force feedings I have done thus far I was able to get all 10 reluctant feeders to eat each time. Now three of them are eating on their own, and the others require only that I put the pinkies head in their mouth and they finish the job. I am hoping that if I can get a bit more size on them I can offer them fuzzies, which Jeff said earlier would be more appetizing.

Thanks for all the advice, I will try to keep you all posted.

Thanks,
Mike

Originally POSTED 5/29/2009:

I had a litter of Guyana Rainbow boas born about a month and a half ago. She had 11 live, one still born and 2 slugs. This is my first litter of Boas, I have done corn snakes in the past. As of yet most of them have shed twice but only one is eating. It seems to me that the rest of them probably should have started by now. I have tried braining the pinkies and also tried to tease feed them, but neither method is working. Any tips on getting the other 10 to eat?

Glad to hear that kick starting the feeding response with force feeding is working!!!

Seems like every year I run into one or two like that. For all but one the force feeding has worked into self feeding, the one that never took is still with us but has not grown much. In the care of a truly good person that is committed to work with her as long as it takes.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count (05/26/2009):
36.51 BRB
29.42 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats