Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thought it might be fun and interesting to start a thread on the many different tricks we employ to get stubborn hatchlings to eat or keep them going until they do so. I will only wait them out for so long (they can get too weak to eat), then they get tube fed these days. (tiny IV tubing attatched to a syringe) I use baby food, chicken or beef, or just plain old chicken egg scambled up raw. I breed GB's, mole kings, Zonata, eastern kings from up north, and LTT. I HAVE to resort to LOTS of trickery with all these stubborn varieties. Obviously prior to tubing them, they get offered regular f/t, then washed (seventh generation unscented has worked great for me), then brained, then scented. If this does not work I go to tailing them. If they spit the tails out, then and only then do I start tube feeding. On occasion I will give them what they really want in a live feeder lizard or snake, or dead snake from a dead in egg hatchling. I rarely ever loose a hatchling, and actually can only think of a few that I could not eventually get eating. One thing that I used to overlook and has made a big difference is to wash the small containers I put them in for feeding with unscented soap as well, this way they don't get any other input except the food item itself. Anyway, share away on some tricks !!!

Joe

I hate to say it but I give up kind of easily on stubborn milk snakes. Out of the 2 clutches (6 and 3) of mexican milks I hatched out this year only 4 are feeding regularly. And out of the remaining 5 one of them died and the other 4 are still steadily refusing anything I put in with them. All of the other ones eating were eating f/t day old pinkies from the start.

These ones have refused f/t pinkies, f/t brained pinkies, live day old pinkies, pinkies scented with anoles then stuff their mouth with an anole leg or tail piece. And they've refused f/t baby anoles. Since I don't live down south I can't just go catch live baby anoles, I almost bought these baby alligator lizards from a pet store yesterday but the lowest I could talk the guy down to was 11 bucks each (I originally asked about them because they looked like ground skinks to me).

And next step would be to shove mice tails down their throats but I don't think I'm ordering more mice until next year. So I'm kind of stuck and out of tricks.
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www.kingpinreptiles.com

Well, this may help with milks, as it helped me with two stubborn Cal kings, in the 90s.

Back in the 90s when I bred Cal kings and Pueblan milks, I was very fortunate to not have hardly any picky feeders.

For Cal kings, I had I believe 2 picky feeders, but this may work for milks too.

Take a corn snake shed skin, put a defrosted pinky mouse in a plastic bag, along with the corn snake shed skin. Rub the mouse with the corn snake shed skin, in the bag, together, and offer the pinky mouse afterwards to the picky snake. That worked like a charm, and I only had to do that about two times, before the 2 Cal kings started feeding with gusto on unscented pinks. May work for milks.

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Genesis 1:1

Good Topic Joe,
I use pinky heads mostly.I have found the size of a food item matters.Seems like the snake can be scared off from a full pinky but will take just the head.That seems to be true even when tail feeding.Too long and they spit it.
When scenting a full pinky I like to insert a tiny section of FT worm snake or skink into the mouth of the pink.I may or may not scent the entire thing.
In the past I would bring gravid earth or worm snakes home and keep them just for the eggs.This works with ring snakes also.Milks don't care for ringneck snakes but the eggs work well on a picky eater.I have had gentilis jump on eggs when all else failed.The egg juice can also work as scenting material.I have used my cornsnake egg juice to scent and even full eggs on large kingsnakes.
Another good trick is to pass a second or third meal into the snakes mouth after it takes the first one.If done carefully the snake will continue eating a few more meals without stopping from the first one.Its as if the snake is eating one long meal.
This does not always work as the snake can spit the first item and you end up with no meal at all.Timing has to be right but if you have a snake that is calm when picked up you can keep passing fussys in before the last one vanishes into its mouth.This trick is mostly used for WC adults that are not good feeders or you want to fatten it up in hopes of better luck after cooling it.Don't try more then three here.If it regurges then you have bigger issues.
The small housing container trick is a good one.The food item is put in with a hatchling in a deli cup or paper bag untill the snake gets tired of looking at the pink and decides it doesn't want a roommate.
Live food item work better then dead(FT)With milks, baby or adults, live food will work well when FT will not.This is a good trick later in the season when milks get a bit picky.
Cooling your snake for the winter at 55° can also get your snake eating but if its thin looking you may lose it.
Force feeding works using tails but you have to be carefull.I broke the jaw on a scarlet baby doing this.Fussy tails work well.Adult mice have too many sharp bones in the tails.Try breaking the bones with a hammer to soften them. Rat pinkys are the best because they are big and have no bones.
When tube feeding I use a pediatric naso-gastric tube or a IV extenstion set.The feeding tubes have round ends so they can't scrape as they go in and they have less resistense.They don't have a hole at the end but have several near the end on the sides.The IV extenstion sets are shorter but need to be cut.I melt the ends to a ball shape to make it easier to slide into the snake and I burn pin holes in the sides of the tube.Use KY jelly to coat the tube.
Some snakes only eat in the dark or at night so time your feeding untill later in the day and stay out of the room.
Good Luck and if your milk won't eat feed ot to your kingsnake.
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"He's down in the basement staring at his snakes " My Wife

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Doug L

Some great stuff guys!! Doug, I love this line: " Good Luck and if your milk won't eat, feed it to your kingsnake". LOL. There are LOTS of tricks to the trade out there, and many of us have tried a lot of what is mentioned, however, some folks might not know these tricks, and ALL of us can probably learn something from each other and find a new little twist that can help get a hatchling or two to eat.

Joe

My "go to" tricks are the fairly common brained f/t pink, placing the snake and a brained pink in a very small container over night, and tease feeding.

If i have to force feed, i use pinkie heads. i'll cut the head off of a f/t pink, dip the head in a raw egg to make it super slick, then once i get the snakes mouth open it more or less just falls down its throat due to being so small and slippery.

I'll usually toss the remaining pink body in with an older king or corn (warning it's kinda gross with the insides get squished out as the snake bites it).

I was just recently having a conversation with a friend of mine about Bill Hasst, and how he used to "tube feed" his snakes a special diet he had formulated. He fed some of his snakes this way for 15 years with no ill effects. This being an extreme example of course, and my goal is to get my snakes on rodents as fast as possible, but sometimes you just have to keep them alive in order to do so!!

"The cornerstone of Bill's success of being able to maintain venomous snakes alive for a much longer period of time, sometimes for years, was the concept and perfection of a special way of providing food to the reluctant reptiles, a system he called force-feeding"
"It took many years and thousands of changes to the formula, but ultimately the universal diet enabled him to keep some snakes healthy and producing top-quality venom for as long as 15 years, and his system was copied by zoos and others who had need of trying to keep difficult snakes, often irreplaceable specimens, alive. "

Joe

you would think the easiest thing to tube feed adult snakes would be....>>>liquified rodents?....freeze...use blender...warm up....tube feed...>?.
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........JY

Yeah, one would think liquid rodents would be the go to thing, however I think Bill Hasst was trying (and did) make a universal food that he used for many different species. Some of these snakes I do not think were rodent eaters. For OUR purposes, yeah, liquid rodents would be great, but nasty!!!! LOL I will stick to my gerbers beef baby food for now. hahahaha. Oh, and great tips down below. I have used moles and wild mice for scenting with good success. I actually used one just the other day and had no luck this time. Oh well, its all about trying different things and finding what works. Love this stuff!!!

Joe

.....wild rodents....worms and germs....be careful....Hamtavirus is still around.....

only ever found one star nosed mole...

remember shrews are venomous and trust me...they have a stink (musk when scared) you don't want to ever smell...

...peromyscus don't always work...and I am sad to say....the last decade I went into the "eat or die" mode....
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........JY

They are put into the deep freeze for quite a while prior to scenting, and I only rub the pinks on the outside fur. Yeah, I don't want to mess around with wild parasites from mice and moles------Dont need that in my collection.

Joe

Excellent topic Joe. Who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks!

For hatchlings, I don’t have much else to suggest other than trying different combinations of what has already been suggested. For kings & milks I sometimes dip pinks in empty egg shells from non Lampropeltis species, usually rat snakes. I then freeze the eggs for reuse. I also freeze deformed snakes so I can use them for scenting, or to feed finicky kings in the future.

For most, it goes without saying that the food should be placed in the snake’s hiding box & left overnight. Also the cage should not be too big – you want the snake to be able to find the food.

For non-feeding adults, i.e. eastern milks, I find that small live prey items work best - try fuzzy/pinky rats or mice. Never leave anything big enough to bite the snake in the cage. Once you get a meal into them you can move on to FT. Non-feeding adults also show a preference for brained pinks or fuzzies. I have an rubber boa, a sub adult pyro & a sub adult syspila that will not accept anything else at certain times during the year (late summer through fall). Also sometimes varying the food item works. I’ve had pits (FL & black pines) that would only accept (FT) chicks. Lastly, if they stop feeding in the fall, brumate them before they lose weight, then try again in the spring when feeding responses are almost always better.

P

....one person metioned a brumation period already....you milk and greyband guys use this method alot...

I used live ...chondros needed frozen ....go figure...

I never had a Cal king eat a snake here...and I tried ...even 5 foot cals...and cornsnakes...never...

corns do not like tuna dipped pinks...here anyways...

tried worm snake pieces for a few different kings and milks...never worked for me...

never actually used egg yolk....hmmm....

...some you guys didn't hit on...

African soft furred rat pinks
gerbil
chinese hamster
russian hamster
syrian hamster

either the live pinks...or pieces or blood from them...

and the number one item all of you guys should have ...

colonies of Peromyscus leucopus.....(white footed mice)...they work charms on alot of snakes.....even the bedding for scenting....from cobras to pythons...we have used them for all kinds of pain in the butt snakes....I got mine from Ball Boutique like 17 years ago....Kathy Love got hers from me...and she has shipped used bedding halfway across the country probably more than once....LOL
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pygmy mice pinks
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........JY