Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a baby honduran milksnake approx 3 months old now. Ive had him for 5 weeks now and hasnt taken a meal yet. He just went through a shed about 6 days ago and is quite active during the day when no one is in the room. It is a very shy snake. I tried boxing it with live and frzn pinkies, tried brain slicing, tried chicken broth(ya i know-im desparate) tried senting it with frog. tried smaller mice, tried larger mice (all pinkies) I have no idea, and it is so stubborn that forcefeeding it is impossible. Ive tried doing that for the last 2 days and im afraid it will set it off from feeding.
How do I go about feeding this thing.

Try scenting with lizards or skinks that is how I got my baby scarlet kings to eat ground skinks.

Reading the things people talk about on the various forums, it seems baby corns are very bad at getting started to eat. Here are few ideas i have seen from them:
1. If you have your hondo in a uperware type container that you can feed in without the problem of ingesting bedding,like having it on a paper towel...brain a thawed and with tweezers set the mouse in there without disturbing the snake and let them in there overnight.,
2. Get an anole and remove its tail and insert a piece of the tail into the thawed pinkie mouth..give it to the snake and leave it alone.

Good Luck
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All creatures great and small we are to care for them all.
4 Corns,6 Kings,3 Milks,1 German Shephard,1 Cairn & 1 Giant Schnauzer

Of all the tools you have to get your baby hondo to eat, your most useful is patience. 5 weeks (if I understood you correctly, he ate before you got him) isn't long enough to warrant panic yet. Is he in a tank where he sees a lot of traffic? That without a "private settling in period" can put some jumpy snakes off feed. I have tried all the same things you mentioned in the past on picky snakes and the most effective measure in my opinion is the paper bag method. I would take a live pinky put him, with the Honduran, in a paper bag with small holes punched in it, and roll up and staple the bag to about halfway. Leave the bag untouched overnight and see what happens. If he doesn't take it, just be persistent. Put him away where he doesn't see/hear a lot of traffic, and try again in 4-7 days. I have also had success in extreme cases by putting some brain matter (from a frozen pinky) on the head of the live pinky before putting him in the bag. I avoid that method if possible because I find it...grody. I feel for you because your situation can be so frustrating but 5 weeks is way too early to talk about force feeding.

As always, this is just my opinion, but I have had 100% "eventual" success with it. Good luck and tell us how it goes.

everyone else's suggestions are good, except i don't think i've ever had a honduran that had to be fed lizards to get started. I think that's more characteristics of the smaller tricolors. But hey, whatever works...

I often have success feeding WASHED pinks, live or dead: buy some UNSCENTED--that's very im portant--dish soap. Ivory makes some, others probably do too. Wash the pinks and rinse them thoroughly, dry them and offer them again. On numberous occasions I've had pyros that rejected a pinky for all night and day, eat the pinky within 5 minutes after its being washed. Can't explain it, but i've observed it, so it's worth a try. I've only done that a couple times with hondos because they're typically more willing to take whatever's offered. In any case, give it a shot and most of all, report back to the forum on your results with any methods, so everyone can gain further insights.

peace
terry

Wow, a lot of good ideas guys, thanks a lot. Some I never would have come across. Give me a few days and ill reply back.