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I have a few kings , mostly alterna, and have had trouble getting all of them on rats (pinks,fuzzies,pups). Most changed over without a problem but a few weren't having it. I started washing the rats and scenting them with a mouse and was moderately successful. Today I tried something new. While frozen, I dipped some rat pinks in egg whites,( farm raised no roids)and thawed them like normal. The egg whites dried during the thaw and every snake took it like it was a mouse. My question is, can the egg whites hurt them? too much protien or anything else you guys can think of? I have been thinking of only dipping half in next week and weening them over a few weeks if possible. It would be awesome if it worked with hatchlings! BTW, I am going for rats as I have great access to a steady supply locally and I have witnessed the growth of clutch mates on rats VS mice and it's staggering. Thanks in advance, Scott.

Very interesting. I have a few hondurans that haven't been wanting to convert over to rat pinks. Maybe I'll have to try your method.

--Dennis

One thing I left out...I thaw in my incubator @ 100 degrees. Not sure it matters but the egg was dry. Didn't want the sub to stick to the rat pink.

Dont sweat the egg white thing, that can't have a bad effect on your snake, just beware of salminilla, a fresh egg every time. And your right about feeding rats vs mice, the high fat content from the pups will make any snake grow faster and thicker but remember milksnakes would pass on a rat of any size in the woods, they really want snakes, lizards,and/or mice, and feeding pup rats long term can make your snakes obese if you feed them every time the poke their heads up, they spend lots of effort in the woods between meals, keeps'em trim and fit.

For stubborn feeders I normally take an egg, crack it open and drop it in a ziplock (freeze it). It will last about a year. I chip off a frozen piece, worm it up and slop it on the pinkies head. A lot of times a stubborn feeders will take it. It works for me and I have not had any problems.

Great. I was hoping it would work on hatchlings. Thanks for the input you guys.

It's good to see people thinking outside the box, Scott. I used to blend skinks and freeze the resulting puree, and break off pieces to use for scenting. Eggs are certainly an easier idea, especially frozen & rubbed on, as suggested below. And there's no reason to worry about it being an unhealthy technique, since many kings eat turtle eggs (and snake eggs?) in the wild. Sure, there might be diffs between bird and reptile eggs, but the more i read and observe the more I'm struck by the startling similarities between those two kinds of animals. I look forward to reading more about how well this strategy works.
(ps: I've talked to people who tube-feed their scarlet king hatchlings raw egg, sometimes for the first year of their lives. They claim (haven't seen it for myself) rapid growth. I've also heard of people feeding scarlet snakes (not kings) egg from a bowl. So there are plenty of precedents for using egg as food. I've just never thought before of using it for scenting.

Thanks for additional info. I fed today the same way as before and had the same results.I only fed two altera but I went two for two and one of them has been the difficult one of the bunch. I'm not sure if I am scenting the rats or just masking the rat smell. I can't wait to try it on stubborn hatchlings later this year. I am also thinking of other ways to try it. I am curious if slugs from an infertale clutch could be blended and frozen for use with hatchlings later.Just a thought, Scott.

>>Thanks for additional info. I fed today the same way as before and had the same results.I only fed two altera but I went two for two and one of them has been the difficult one of the bunch. I'm not sure if I am scenting the rats or just masking the rat smell. I can't wait to try it on stubborn hatchlings later this year. I am also thinking of other ways to try it. I am curious if slugs from an infertale clutch could be blended and frozen for use with hatchlings later.Just a thought, Scott.

A couple thoughts:

1) for convenience' sake, if nothing else, i'd try to wean the snakes off scented as soon as possible. It's a means to an end, not the end itself. So next feeding, I'd offer non-scented first; if they don't take it, then offer scented for a couple more feedings, then try unscented again.

2) I don't think scenting snake food with snake egg scent is a good idea. Some female lampropeltis eat their eggs after they lay them (I think someone posted photo evidence last year of what a few of us had hypothesized for several years, to explain the phenomenon of obviously gravid females who start slowly "deflating". The revelation: They did lay, then ate their eggs so had the same body mass, which they gradually lost as they digested and defecated the egg-meals. So they "deflated" without ever having been observed to lay. It'd be easy to not notice the "egg mass" had moved from close to the vent to closer to more in the middle of the animal). It may be a remote risk, but anything that might cause them to associate snake egg and "food item" probably should be avoided.