Reptile & Amphibian Forums

We got a female 100% het. for Caramel Albino 88 grams on July 1st of 2012. She ate fairly regularly up till Sept. 23rd growing to 125 grams. She has not taken a meal in 3 1/2 months and is at 104 grams now. She does not seem sick, she is alert and comes out of the tub when opened. Her last shed was July 27th 2012.

After, trying every scent under the sun. In Dec. we started trying to assist feed. We have not been succesful in getting even a pinky in her. She opens up 180 degrees and backs off of it. Desparate to get something in her we have bought green tree frogs separate from those we use to scent. We have been able to get her to be assist fed frog legs. Once we get the thigh in her she swallows the calf and foot. These are very small and who knows how nutritious meals. We are hoping to just get her metabolism going to kick in her desire to feed.

Any Ideas?

Brock and Jen

I think you need to state what your goals are. You know, why do you want her to keep feeding instead of brumating.

If you want her to feed all winter, then you really need to make sure the snake has heat choices that are really warm enough. Say 75F with the ability to get to 95F.

If they sense cold, they will stop feeding. Its not the cold thats the problem is the lack of heat that is. Recently, last month, I found a female hog that had recently fed and was sitting at 45F. But she could get to heat and was headed that way when I found her. This is in nature. Its when heat is not available to digest their meal, do they stop feeding.

Its hard to say what your doing as you did not explain your setup either. Without knowing that, only guesses will occur.

Also, there is no reason to force feed(assist feed) any captive hatched snake. No good can come from that and only harm will occur.

If a individual is not feeding, its your task to figure how why. In most cases its temperature related this time of year. Dehydration can also be a factor. Cheers

This is not unheard of for this time of the year. Even if you keep the temperatures up for your snakes, there is a conjectural belief that snake also sense changes in barometric pressures which can cause behavioral changes such as going off of food and wanting to brumate despite constant temperature changes. But like I said, that is all conjecture based on individual experiences.

My advice is to stop forcefeeding and just monitor the snake as long as the snake doesn't appear unhealthy or is losing any significant amount of weight, especially showing folds in the skin. If it is maintaining it's weight to around 90% of what it normally weighs then it is probably ok.

A natural course of action is to make sure the snake is empty and perhaps cool it down so that it can go through a type of brumation process if possible. This has often times been reported to bring about a healthy feeding response after a cooling period. One benefit to cooling also is that it slows the metabolism of the snake so weight loss won't be so drastic unlike when it is kept in warmer environments.

In regards to the comment "there is no reason to force feed(assist feed) any captive hatched snake. No good can come from that and only harm will occur.", that is entirely incorrect and false! There is no evidence at all that "only harm will occur", this type of conjecture is really based on nothing but ignorance. The truth is, some snakes need to be force fed for a matter of reasons, some that get sick for whatever reason, others that are wild caught and need to be weaned onto a specific more common food source, etc. There are lots of reasons really, and no known ill effects have been observed unless the procedure was not done properly or the snake has other problems that has less to do with force feeding and more to do with other health problems. Many a herpetological veterinary book even outline the methods for successful force feeding methods.

There are also instances of hatchlings that refuse to eat pinkies initially. Now, some people will either cull those specimens or let them starve to death. Over the years, I have observed that some Westerns don't seem to understand the concept of eating, they see a pinky in front of them, they are interested, they poke and roll it around but eventually get tired of this exercise and move on. My observation for this behavior is that when this happens, I never see the snake open it's mouth, as if it doesn't know why it should. It seems that once they "learn" how to do this, feeding usually commences on a regular basis. One trick to get them to do this on their own is to spray water onto the pinky so that the snake will drink from it which can in turn cause it to open it's mouth on it's own causing it to actually eating the pinky. I've done this several times with success but not all individuals are turned this way. A similiar method to this is also braining. However, there are those individuals that need a more forceful effect...

Over the years, I have adopted and improved a method of force feeding hatchlings that refuse to eat until they are weaned onto eating pinky mice on their own. With the exception of a few individuals that had other physical problems/deformities, I proudly have had a 100% success rate using my method on Westerns which basically consists of using a gavage needle, beef baby food and experience. Some babies only need to be treated once or twice until they take to eating on their own while others can take a couple of months, but once they turn, they are strong eaters and ultimately healthy snakes. One thought as to why some might turn after one or two treatments is that it might be a matter of getting the bowels going; once they defecate, they have a hunger that usually triggers a feeding response. Some individuals are also very small which might be another trigger response problem, perhaps the food item appears to be too daunting a task. With those individuals that weigh 4 grams or under, I usually witness that once I get them up to 5-7 grams from force feeding, they are more prone to eating on their own. Other more stubborn individuals is hard to ascertain why they refuse to eat on their own for long periods of time. One particular male I hatched out needed to be forcefed for almost 3 months on pure baby food. Once he finally hit about 14 grams, he became a very aggressive eater and is now almost 4 years old and proven breeder. He obviously has suffered none of the supposed bad effects of force feeding as was suggested earlier.

Anywho, like I stated earlier, unless drastic physical deviations are witnessed, it's sometimes better to do nothing with snakes that were eating regularly before than to start on a force feeding regimen. Hognose can be notorious for going off of food for months at a time with no ill effects.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Hi Rex, first, its all about context. Harm is more then physical, it can also be behavioral as well. Lets put behavior on hold for a second.

Normally if a snake, or any reptile stops feeding, there is a reason. When winter sets in, reptiles normally stop feeding because they no longer have the ability digest food. As in, its not hot enough. If that is the case, if they consumed prey, it would rot and be regurgitated.

If thats the case, then putting food in its stomach with theres no ability to digest that food, is not a good idea. Hence harmful

If the snake lost the ability to feed for some other reason, its still not a good idea to force it to feed. In context, that is, this snake, it apparently was of good weight, feeding and growing. Then stopped in Sept. Which by the way is not winter and in nature, a real active month for hognose. But then, we do not have any solid information to say why it stopped feeding, but sept is real early for normal winter behavior to occur.

ALso about context, yes to save an individuals life, then force/assist feeding can be used. But again, this does not appear to be the case, as the snake is(was) of good weight.

I would look for WHY the snake stopped feeding. In many cases a simple moving to another cage can often allow the return to feeding. Again, we cannot say, as there is very little info to work with.

Back to behavior, its never a good idea behaviorally to force a "normal" food item down the throat of a animal, with the hopes it will feed on that item in the future. I think a better choice is a pinky pump. As snakes are not going to be feeding on metal or plastic at a later time.

My point may be very difficult to get across here as many folks TREAT these animals as only biological units totally lacking in behavior. If they do not allow behavior, then losing it is not a big loss.

The reality is, these animals are behavior and their biology supports that behavior.

For instance, my pair of hogs are active, even thought last night the cool part of the cage was 51F and thats where they were. THey are now on the warm end(61f where it was) and the male is looking at me as I write this. Just ten minutes ago, the female was looking at me. My bet is, if when they do that, if I smacked them in the nose, they would stop doing that. Sir, thats behavior, they learn from both negative and positive stimulus.

So yes, we disagree, but more then that, we really should be in the same context in order to agree or not. Cheers

Hi FR,
thanks for the food for thought. I didn't print your reply out but I did have a few questions. I will try to ask to the best of my memory.
What is a pinky pump?
When assist feeding I/we use our fingers. So, I didn't get the "taste of plastic or metal" part. Is a pinky pump a tool?

Our hogs are at 78-90 DF so, hopefully she will be able to digest. She is also alert and active still. So again we hope she can digest.

We'd love to get a stool sample to look into other possible reasons. But with only two very small meals just recently there hasn't been any defication yet.

We haven't tried moving her. It probably wouldn't hurt though as she is already not eating. We have just one year of experience with hogs. Although, we do have 50 in our collection. Our experience with moving them has been that they can tend to stop eating after a move. Especially, if the move is to a new bigger home. But like I said, It couldn't hurt at this point.

I do agree that we should let them be and do what they will. We just really hate to lose one for not making the effort. All of our hogs ar CB. They don't have any real world experience but instinct I am sure plays a part.

Thanks again,

Brock and Jen.

Our hogs are at 78-90 DF so, hopefully she will be able to digest. She is also alert and active still. So again we hope she can digest.
Snakes do not carry on the production of gastric fluid when not needed, it does not matter what the temps are.

Normally when snakes are not feeding, they seek cooler temps, as soon as they feed, they head to high heat to restart the process, when back off to cooler temps as needed. This is how they work naturally. What happens in small boxes, has very little to do with snakes, please understandd, small cages are about people. And its the people who make that choice, not the animals. Please, this is not meant to be offensive, its just what we do. Not what they do.

We haven't tried moving her. It probably wouldn't hurt though as she is already not eating. We have just one year of experience with hogs. Although, we do have 50 in our collection. Our experience with moving them has been that they can tend to stop eating after a move. Especially, if the move is to a new bigger home. But like I said, It couldn't hurt at this point.

There is some misconception that snakes are picky and any little thing will stop them from feeding. That is wrong, naturally and all that means is, they can and do get the temps and other conditions they need,(in nature) they eat anything anytime. And feed super aggressively. In other words, they grab food and ask questions later. You know, is this something edible.
So to stop feeding from a simple move to another cage is way off base. They stop feeding because their conditions are not being met. Not fully and that is the important part. Whats important is, you understand that the conditions in small boxes is not going to reveal the real snake, its in most cases very limited. Our cages only give us little parts of these snakes.

On a side note, snakes scent make their home areas, a new cage is void of their scent and therefore not part of their home. Try moving all the cage furniture with them to a new larger cage.

In nature, they move from only a few feet, to many hundreds of feet a day. So why would a larger cage stop them from feeding. again, normally the long travels in nature are to feeding areas. Please consider, this information is to help you think.

I do agree that we should let them be and do what they will. We just really hate to lose one for not making the effort. All of our hogs are CB. They don't have any real world experience but instinct I am sure plays a part.

Thats not the point, in order to let them be, you must have what they need in your cage.

The problem is, the smaller the cage, the more difficult it is to include more choices for the snake to make.

For instance, you mention a range of temps, yet that is in a small area, so how does it work? How do they work that out. We use the term "usable temps", which means, the animal in question understands and has the ability to use those temps provided. Just because a probe can read a temp, does not make it usable. SImply put, to be usable, they must use it.

Please no offense, but folks like Rex say, not all will survive and would have died in nature. That is wrong. Nature has things that KILL you. That kill you if you make the slightest error. Its not about an individual does not have a feeding response. ITs more about getting hit by a ramcharger(dodge). Or a bird of prey. Or freezing to death because you picked the wrong shelter.

ALso snakes behave based on need. IF a snake has no need to continue feeding in marginal conditions, they stop feeding. Yet, its still about marginal conditions.

I do agree with Rex, if your animal chooses to stop feeding and your not going to change the conditions to something more supportive, then do allow it to conserve energy by brumating.

Of course I do not know this but, you seem to be wanting this particular animal to grow so you can breed it sooner. I am sure your smaller individuals are feeding fine. Maybe even others of this ones size and gender. Which does bring up the point, its an individual, and in nature, individual variation, is what allows species to exsist. If they did not have this individual variation, then one event would kill off the entire population.

pinky pumps were invented in the early 70's by this fella in the northwest(worked at Boeing). Then others make them. Its a syringe that you put pinkies in, and it liquifies them and injects them into the stomach of the patient. You do not have to force or trick a snake to do anything. Its also not assoiated with the actual prey item. An analogy is, I am sure if your Doc force fed you a chicken leg, you would not want to eat chicken legs later. Most folks avoid foods that have caused them problems, thats an inherent survival tool.

please understand, its natural to avoid tramatic experiences, And being force fed/ assist fed, is normally tramatic. Avoiding past bad experiences is how these animals work in nature.

About shoe box keeping, many here(Rex and such) think I am against it. I am not, what I am against is basing your thoughts on snakes as if shoe boxes(small cages) and a small temp range is NORMAL, optimal, right, etc. It is not. Its a human invention to make a task simple. Small cages are about people, limited choices are about people. Their marginal at best, and ok, if managed well.

Look outside, imagine rolling fields of grasslands and think how would your snake live there, not walls, no limitations. That is what they do.

AGain best wishes and PLEASE, no offense to anyone mentioned or not.

Thanks FR and Thanks Troy,
I did fail to give my setup. They are in a Vision 15 qt. setup. The front temp. is 80 DF and the rear is 90 DF. The other 19 hogs are not trying to brumate. She is from a known source and knowing his practices they are not likely to have been brumated before.
Thanks again, Troy for the in-depth insight and probability.

Brock and Jen

Thanks Troy... for the in-depth insight and probability.

You are very welcome!

She is from a known source and knowing his practices they are not likely to have been brumated before.

Based on this, I'm left to assume that you bought this snake as a sub-adult then? Not that there is anything wrong with that, but there is a consensus amongst some people that buying sub-adults and adults can be risky as those animals might be acclimated to very specific conditions and when they are transferred to a new owner in a different environment, that they can change what once was established and predictable behavior into something unpredictable and troublesome.

To be honest, I'm kind of on the fence about this as I've purchased many an adult and sub-adult animals and for the most part have never had any problem having those animals adapt to our environment which can be very different than where they came from but there have been a very few troublesome animals that took a while longer to establish despite being of proper size for their age and appearing healthy. Those particular animals have been the exception though and not the rule.

If I have a choice, I actually prefer to buy animals from hatchlings up to a year and not much older, that way I can establish them at a young age and have several years of making sure they are comfortable in their environment prior to reaching sexual maturity as I do have many males that I purchased as adults that refuse to breed for me despite being healthy active individuals. However, almost all of the males that I purchased as yearlings have always had a good sexual interest. While it is unclear as to why there is such a difference, I can only go by my observations as to what happens here, others might have vastly different experiences that would contradict my experiences.

Revisiting the discussion of forcefeeding... On December 17 we hatched out a single het Ghost male that weighed 5 grams. While he appeared healthy, he seemed very sluggish and felt weak when held. He was minorly active for the first 2 weeks but showed no interest in eating f/t or live day old pinkies. We made the decision to pump him with .6ml of beef baby food by January 2. My wife, who assists and holds the snakes while I apply the gavage needle told me that the little guy was so limp, he felt almost dead. Well, 3 days later I found a defecation and decided to offer him a day old pinky on January 6, he ate it almost immediately and then proceeded to bury himself in the rabbit pellets to quiety digest his meal. Last night, January 11, he was out and actively searching for food but at that time, I didn't have any live pinkies to offer but had several pregnant mice that I knew would give birth by the 12th or next day. Well, this afternoon, January 12, I found a nice litter of freshly born pinkies and offered one to the snake and he ate it within 5 minutes and disappeared to digest his meal again.

Now, the importance of this story is that there are instances where forcefeeding can be a very important tool to use on snakes that just need that extra little help. Yes, it is true that in the wild that snakes like this probably wouldn't survive or be fit to survive, but these snakes are not in the wild nor are they subject to the same kind of things that nature can provide that we cannot. And that's not to say that these snakes that do need help cannot ultimately be healthy and thrive under artificial conditions. Like I stated before, I have several individuals that I had to forcefeed to get started, some stubborn eaters, others, well who knows, but all of them are now several years old, eating on their own and show no health problems at all, some have even become proven breeders. So the proof is there, at least for some of us that choose to indulge in the practice, that it can be helpful in establishing otherwise healthy snakes that are just having problems adjusting and acclimating.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Hi Troy,

Thanks again for your input. Like I said in a previous post "we only have 1 year of experience with hogs".

Yes, we do buy hatchlings for the most part. She was the biggest one we have ever recieved at 88 grams. She was sold or advertised a a yearling also. We got her from BHB and I've heard Brian say (and I cannot quote him) something about it not being of any advantage to brumate sub-adults or those not of size or age to breed. A few breeders we have talked to do not brumate at all. Some of them are very successful too.
Also, you are not the first to mention getting them young. Or that a move later in life can really disrupt them. The thing is right after we got her she ate like a champ. That is the puzzling part to us.

FR-
Said something about a pinky pump.... Are you famailiar with what that is?

Thanks,

Brock and Jen

On a side topic

We read a post by davidALfang2
He was talking about not really planning on breeding at the time but that he "found one of his females ovulating". How can you tell when this is happening?

That's David's own magic touch I suppose. Maybe he turns on the mood light, puts on some Barry White and things happen.

Honestly though, I don't know what David is doing or feeling other than what he already told you.

But that's all part of the fun of the hobby, we all develop our own little skills, some of which can be passed along, others, well they are a little more esoteric or difficult to do. Like popping snakes. I, for the life of me, do not have the skill to do this, never had for whatever reason, and since a couple of years ago when I cut off part of my left thumb, I now have difficulty holding small snakes effectively enough to even want to try it.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

Its very easy to tell if and when they are ovulating.

First if you watch your animals, when they feed, they are large in the middle, then the bolus moves to the back(turns to poop)They are heavy in the rear. Then they pass that and return to a normal size. Just before they ovulate, they build up enternal fat and its appears like they are holding feces.

At this time, if they feed, it swells way more then normal.

Soon after then, they drop ovum from from their ovaries and they move into the oviducts. Once there, they from a "String of pearls" At first they are about the size of a pea and a half an inch apart. If you allow the female to crawl between your fingers(held still at a distance 2/3 aprox, the diameter of the femmale) like she is crawling thru a crack. You can feel the ovum. Do not squeeze, just let her crawl thru. This is called palpating and is done all the time without any harm or discomfort to the female.

Once you learn this, you will be able to tell without palpating.

The female will become receptive late in the fat buildup and thru the string of pearls stage.

Once the female copulates, the ovum swell up and move close together, at this time, its hard to count the ovum. Not impossible, just harder.

Also, the day a female drops ovum and they migrate into the oviducts, she appears sick and tender. Often requir ing only to return to normal the next day. again, this only takes a day.

This works on most snakes and is easy with hogs are they are soft bodied. Hard bodied species are a little harder, but with experience it works here too.

My old friend use to carry a silk hanky, and palpated every snake he held, wild ones, others pets, captives of all manner.

If you do this on a regular basis, you will learn a whole lot you did not know before.

If it was practiced here, there would not be any winter surprises.

I am not a believer of the term, "hibernate or brumate" as it is not accurate as to what snakes do. THey LIVE at cold or cool temps. Not go thru a winter sleep. Keepers force that so they can have time off(i am guessing)

Their base is cool and move to heat for specific purposes.

I am a fan of supporting a wide range of temps and allow the snakes to choose what they want. Best wishes

Like I said in a previous post "we only have 1 year of experience with hogs".

No worries. I only have about 7 years experience while some of my peers have 10 years. Regardless of any of that, what matters most is not only what you learn but what you apply as well as what you can offer to the community in terms of real based experience, not conjecture and opinions based on nothing. To me, the worst part of any hobby are those people that gain their so-called knowledge from others or whatever they glean from the net/forums and then just blindly regurgitate any of it without any substance of their own. This of course can be dangerous as many others might be prone to believing the convictions of a person that is just regurgitating unsubstantiated information.

I'm sure in another year or two, you'll have more than enough experience and anecdotes to share with the rest of us!

We got her from BHB and I've heard Brian say (and I cannot quote him) something about it not being of any advantage to brumate sub-adults or those not of size or age to breed. A few breeders we have talked to do not brumate at all. Some of them are very successful too.

I am one of those breeders that no longer brumate and have, what I believe, fairly decent success in breeding and raising hognose. I originally brumated my snakes but when the temperatures up here exceeded what I felt was safe enough to do so, I stopped the practice and afterwards discovered that I had pretty much the same rate of productivity from my snakes as I did when I was brumating them and with no apparent physicaly or behavioral changes.

The thing is right after we got her she ate like a champ. That is the puzzling part to us.

Well, you might find that some hognose will do this from time to time usually with no ill effects but that doesn't mean you shouldn't continue to monitor the overall weight and health of the snake. The most important part though is not to overreact which, in all honesty, you might be doing right now. If the snake is maintaining it's weight and appears healthy and active, then all you can do is offer it food on a periodic schedule, like once a week. If the snake starts to lose significant weight, I'm thinking anything over 15-20%, then you might want to consider taking it to the vet before taking drastic measures like forcefeeding it without having any experience with forcefeeding.

One of the drawbacks with forcefeeding a snake that doesn't need it, especially when using methods like forcing a large food item down it's throat, is it can actually turn the snake off from eating for longer periods which can then prove very detrimental to the overall health of the snake.

Said something about a pinky pump.... Are you famailiar with what that is?

I am intimately familiar with pinky pumps as I own one and have used it many times. Here is a picture I took tonight of a pinky pump (on the left), a syringe with gavage needle (in the middle) and of course a day old hatchling to show as a comparison in terms of size.

Frank said: I think a better choice is a pinky pump. As snakes are not going to be feeding on metal or plastic at a later time.

First off, I don't know what he's rambling about snakes feeding on metal or plastic, just more static noise as far as I'm concerned.

In regards to recommending a pinky pump though, Frank recommends using one, I do not. What Frank's experience using one is or whether he even owns one, I have no idea, but here's some reasons why I don't recommend using a pinky pump.

#1 Pinky pumps are often times very expensive and difficult to find, especially replacement parts. I paid around $60 for mine.

#2 Pinky pumps require a bit of maintenance. They must be thoroughly cleaned after every use which kind of goes with saying but as some of them contain many parts like mine which breaks down into 6 basic parts, nozzle, liquifier, washer, glass tube, housing and plunger assembly. The problem with mine is, the tube is actually glass, so you have to be extremely careful not to break it and also very careful when putting the plunger assembly into as you can actually chip off edges of the glass tube which could end up going into the snake. Also, cleaning a pinky pump is nasty business as the main principle of a pinky pump is to basically "liquify" pinkys so that they are easier to consume and digest but the problem is, what is left in the tube and pushed into the liquifier is all of the skin, bones and internal organs that didn't manage to get liquified. So you have to take all of that stuff out and it's not only grisly and smelly, but it's kind of hard to pull all of that stuff out to be able to clean the pump.

#3 Pinky pumps can pump only a very limited amount of food. The problem with pinky pumps is that they usually only hold 3-5 pinkies (depending on the size of the pinkies) and when used, all you are pushing is basically all of the fluids from the pinkies and barely any of the other body parts which really accounts for a lot of nutrients as well. Using 4 pinkies, you might be lucky if you really get the equivalent of 2 pinkies worth of food into the snake. Quite wasteful if you ask me.

#4 Pinky pumps, in my experienced opinion, are not suited for small snakes such as hatchlings or under 20 grams as the nozzle is quite large and requires more force than necessary to push it down the throat of the snake.

Pinky pumps do have their use, but from my own experience, they are of extremely limited use and based on the amount of waste of food items and the ultimate care and cost of having one, there are far better tools and methods out there.

One tool that I have adopted and been successful with using for many years now is a gavage needle used with disposable syringes. The nice thing about gavage needles is that you can get them in a variety of sizes and lengths. Unfortunately, they can be as difficult to obtain as most pet stores don't carry them, but you can order them from some vets as well as online veterinary supply sites. Gavage needles can also be expensive costing anywhere from $20-40. Gavage needles usually have very small inside diameter tubes, so the food source must be very liquified or else they will clog. There might be gavage needles out there that might have bigger ID tubes, I just don't have at that size.

So there you go! I hope you and others find any of this helpful.
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

I bought a pinkie pump probably 10 years ago, I took one look at it & put it back in the box, & that's where it sits still. I guess it didn't seem worth the hassle as I was already use to force feeding small snakes. The way I do it is simple, open the snakes mouth with my finger nail, put a cut off day old pinkie head in the snakes mouth, push it slowly with a snake probe into the neck, & the snake will do the rest. Every year I have a few babies I have to do this with.

Dan Eby

I agree with both Troy and Dan that pinkie pumps are not the way to go. Having used them in the past, I was not impressed and found it difficult. I have not used Troy's method of using the gavage needles but I am very intrigued by it and will definitely be referring to this post when a situation arises that I need to use a tool like this. So far I have been successful using a procedure as outlined by Dan, and have found (especially with baby snakes) that a section of adult mouse tail is a great item to use in force feeding, as it is not messy and getting it past the mouth is easy as you can twist the tail.

Back to the original topic, I agree with Troy. It is probably of no concern given the changing of the seasons, just keep an eye on her.

Ross Couvillon