Reptile & Amphibian Forums

You know, in twenty some years of doing this I've never had a snake that steadfastly refused f/t food. Now I've got one, and I must say i lack the experience to fix it. I've tried a few things. Anyone have like an ancient Chinese secret or something?

You'll probably get several good responses here, but a few techniques that have worked for me on fickle adult animals were:
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1. Pulling off a patch of skin on the top of the warmed, dead rodent's head, and leave it overnight with the snake.
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2. Offer "treat" foods like pinks or day old quail to a large adult Rat Snake until the snake gets conditioned to expect food from you.
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3. Wiggle the warmed food on tongs at a reasonable distance for sight feeders.
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Good Luck
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Regards, Bill McGighan

That's right Bill, those are indeed things that can elicit a good feeding response from some that would ordinarily be reluctant to go for a F/T offering.

A funny thing, I even have a 2007 Honduran that will STILL not accept a F/T mouse unless it has been brained and then smeared very liberally onto the head/face area first. Interestingly enough, it's sibling sister also would NOT EVER accept ANYTHING F/T, no matter what tricks were ever tried, even if just freshly killed 10 seconds prior and wiggled iradically with long tongs along the cage as if it were definitely alive. It had to be live and actually breathing air, or else she would not even give it a second look..LOL! She would pound a live mouse the second it hit the floor of the cage however. I took serious note to how she reacted(or a lack thereof)to both types of prey for a long, long time, and I actually think she must have solely gotten her scent cues from the carbon dioxide itself that was expelled from the lungs and skin of the prey animal more than anything else!!

I have owned and bred many countless hundreds and hundreds of differnt snakes over the course of many years, and a few individuals like these are very uncommon to come across. Usually they learn to accept F/T prey by itself after a very short while, but some can be extremely choosy when they want to be for the rest of their lives as you know...LOL!

I'm certainly not saying the poster's snake will be like those two individuals were, far from it I would think. I was merely pointing out how extreme a very small number of snakes can be once in a very great while, and I am betting you have had a good number of experiences like this too over the years yourself.

Just like any other living animal, or human for that matter, certain individuals can sometimes be virtually impossible to sway from their stubborn ways it seems..LOL!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

>>You know, in twenty some years of doing this I've never had a snake that steadfastly refused f/t food. Now I've got one, and I must say i lack the experience to fix it. I've tried a few things. Anyone have like an ancient Chinese secret or something?

I have a few live only feeders, and just have not worked with them much to switch them to f/t. Some just won't switch using this method, in my experience, but it has worked with a few.

First offer a stunned rodent.

If it takes the stunned prey, try freshly killed.

Feed f/k a couple times, then offer a f/k rodent - and after it eats it offer a f/t rodent.
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-Toby Brock
Southwestern Center for Herpetological Research

Thank you guys for responding to this. If I ever come across ya'll, the beer (or cokes if you prefer) is on me!

You are, of course, very welcome, and this is a rarity, but rereading with more time made me realize that none of us answered correctly!!!
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The correct response to your post should have been:
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What type of snake is it?
....(Some Rats are more sight feeders than scent.)
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What age?
....(The "treat" idea isn't very practical on hatchlings.)
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How long have you had it?
....(If a short time, you may not know its previous husbandry.)
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WC or CB?
....(Sometimes wild animals "imprint", for lack of a better word, on a particular prey type. Also, their defenses against predators are sometimes keener, so they are shyer)
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Does the animal have a secure hide?
....(High strung animals can feed more readily from a hide.)

And, you've tried some things; what have you tried?
....(Since you may have already tried all our suggestions, they could be mute.)

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Regards, Bill McGighan

Is the animal in a side entry cage, oe a top entry (like a fish tank or plastic box)?
....(Reason for this question is that some of the primary rat snake predators come in from above.)
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Regards, Bill McGighan

Thank you again for your concern. Just to answer your questions: It is a male suboc from 2009. I bought him about a month ago from the breeder who hatched him. I keep him in a plastic box with good secure hides on the cool and warm sides. Temps are 75 on the cool and 85-90 on the warm side. I build screen tops out of the box lids for my subocs because I live in a very humid area and the added ventilation keeps the humidity down. In my experience, the key to successful Trans Pecos husbandry is low humidity!
I've tried putting the snake in a small box with the mouse, I've tried different sizes, I've also brained a couple, wiggled them around a lot, etc. One thing I haven't tried is putting a f/t one next to a live one in the cage.
Cheers!

"It is a male suboc from 2009"
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You'll probably resolve it shortly...
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For what its worth....
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It's my feeling that SUBOCs are both scent and sight hunters, with emphasis on the latter.
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I have a female blond that would only eat live fuzzies in her first 1/4 year.
I kept her in a plastic Shoe box with good ventilation (about 8"X12", but small.
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For three months I couldn't get her to F/T. Drove me crazy.. Live Fuzzy = grab it; F/T fuzzy wiggled or not = nothing.
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She seemed frightened of the F/T in close quarters (and probably of my heavy handedness of wiggling the mouse, relative to a live one.)
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I moved her and her hide to a plastic container that had twice the floor area.
Gave her a week to settle in.
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I tried wiggling a warmed F/T Fuzzy in the aspen at as far away as I could in the larger container (about 14"X20". She came out of her very secure hide, stalked the thawed mouse and grabbed it immediately from the tongs.
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She's now in her third year, in a 3' X 2" cage, and does the same when a F/T adult mouse is wiggled in the aspen: she comes from across the cage, stalks it, then grabs it.
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Regards, Bill McGighan

I think Doug may be on to something concerning the smell of exhaled air from a living rodent. CO2 is a good possibility, but perhaps the actual smell of their breath is a triggering stimuli. I would even venture to say that the smell of the rodents breath is a scent used to track prey. It may even be the most detectable scent left behind by a wild rodent. Domestic rodents have long been removed from an environment where it is necessary to keep their scent to a minimum. The instinct for a snake to shun f/t domestic mice unless they are thoroughly cleaned is clue that this could be true. I have scented f/t by placing them in a small container with some mice of various sizes with pretty good results. Perhaps saliva from a live mouse would be an effective scenting agent? Just some thoughts.

Yeah, there are some VERY strong scent molecules within the lungs that are expelled after every single breath that would probably be taken as an extremely inviting "feast-highway" to snakes. Their Jacobson's organ has to pickup things that we humans couldn't even begin to understand. I mean, look at even animals like "bomb dogs", arson accelerant-smelling dogs, drug dogs, cadaver dogs(even under water), etc..

That little "computer" they have tells them the most minute details of anything even in the general area!

Sort of like a "mass spectrometer" is to a crime lab..LOL!

~Doug
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"a snake in the grass is a GOOD thing"

my website -serpentinespecialties.webs.com

>>You know, in twenty some years of doing this I've never had a snake that steadfastly refused f/t food. Now I've got one, and I must say i lack the experience to fix it. I've tried a few things. Anyone have like an ancient Chinese secret or something?

I know this was already mentioned but my method is pretty basic when I want to switch a live feeder over to f/t. (usually wild caught)
I always take my time, I don't try to rush it. I like to keep them on live until I get them settled (tamed) and to a point that they can be handled. Once I get them to this point then I start to switch them over. Kind of bad but first I will start with partially stunned...Incapacitated enough not to run but still twitching. After several feedings with "twitching" I will move to freshly killed (smacked hard enough to kill) after a few feedings like this I will then kill the prey and leave it sit for an hour or so and then offer it. After a few feedings like this a frozen thawed is usually taken without hesitation. Sometimes it doesn't take this long but the few times they refused early I went to this method and have never had one that didn't switch over.
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Corn snakes and rat snakes...No one can have just one.
"Resistance is futile"
Jimmy Johnson
(Draybar)
Draybars Snakes

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n/m

From my own personal experience, on top of everything mentioned here. i have a few 'shy' eaters that will not accept dangled prey but if left by the hidebox overnight ends up gone the next morning. The hardest snake i have to feed is a 4 year old ball python. It has an INCREDIBLE feeding response that scares the hell out of me. The first time i dangled F/T food in front of it was the last. It went straight past the mouse, up the tongs and wanted my 98.6 degree flesh. Live prey has never lasted more than 5 seconds after being dropped in. It will also not eat if prey is left overnight. The way i feed the snake right now is thaw out a rat all day. heat it under a lamp until it is alive temperature. Wait until i can drop the rat right in front of the door of the hide box. If i drop the rat to where it covers the door the snake comes shooting out with the rat in its mouth and constricts it. if i leave a gap it pokes its head out right past the rat as if its not even there. Ugh not fun.