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I could really use some advice. I purchased a CB '03 gray banded king that was supposedly feeding on anole scented f/t pinkys. No big deal, I figured I would let her settle in for 3 days then try unscented f/t before buying a lizard and scenting. Tried plain f/t, tried braining, tried leaving her in small deli container w/brained f/t overnight, but she refused to bite. After 1 1/2 weeks of this I finally broke down and drove the 45 miles to the nearest pet store (a PetCo I am sorry to say!)and purchased an anole. Problem solved right? Wrong! Went through every above situation again with a scented f/t and still no good. Now I am getting worried. Contacted the breeder who is 3 states away and was informed she was taking live scented pinkys and that I must have misunderstood. Problem is I cannot locate any live pinkys. Every pet store either refuses to sell them or does not have any. I live in a very rural area and don't have many pet store options. Should I just throw the anole in there with her or will this just make any future rodent feedings more difficult? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. She is a beautiful specimen and I don't want to lose her. Has been almost 3 weeks since her last meal.

Well there are a few things you can try that may work or may not. I would consider cooling him for a few months. Do you have a basement that gets to about 55 or so ? Ive cooled snakes at 58-60 but 55 seems to be the best at least for me. What happens is that usually snakes come out of Brumation very hungry and will start taking food even unscented in some cases. If you do this either freeze the anole you purchased or keep it alive just in case when the snake comes out for scenting purposes.

P.s. If you need to know what to do for cooling just ask and Ill get you through it.
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Keith Hillson

Man, what are you doing with a gun in space? - Charles "Chick" Chapple

I have thought about that. Her 3 week mark on fasting is coming up but I have have no basement. So an outside garage is my only option. Would take an extremely reliable heating system as I am out of town regularly and it frequently gets below 20 here. Kinda a last resort type thing.

I used to be in that same boat till i got into a house. What I did was borrow a corner of a friend or relatives basement. I wouldnt risk the garage thing if I were you.

Keith
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Keith Hillson

Man, what are you doing with a gun in space? - Charles "Chick" Chapple

If possible see if you can find a pet store that will sell you a pregnant female mouse. I did this once, and now I just breed my own. This might cause more problems though.(housing,cleaning,and smell) AND you still won't know for sure if it will eat live pinks. Still it's worth a try. For now I'd feed it that anole, and freeze it's tail for use later.-smokey

This does not solve your getting mice issue, but it might help.

OK here we go. This is to help the novice who is having problems getting a hatchling to eat.

First and foremost, be patient. Most will eat when they get hungry. I have had hatchling go 50 day before they eat. If you have just purchased a snake give it a couple of days (around 48-72 hours) to get used to the new environment prior to attempting to feed. Even if it eats the first night, it will probably throw it up due to stress. If your snake has just hatched, wait until after the first shed to attempt feeding.

1. Hold the snake. Let it crawl around. The more active it is the more calories it uses. Thus, it will eat sooner.

2. Try feeding at night. This is when they normally eat.

3. Keep temp 75 - 80, drop it some at night from what you keep it during the day. (a couple of degrees)

4. Put the pinkie next to the hatchling in the cage without disturbing it. Give it overnight to eat.

5. Do 4 again but remove everything from the cage.

6. Feed it in a deli cup.

7. Try f/t pinkies (mice, rats, and any other rodent you can find). First, try pinkies that are thawed to room temperature. Next, try pinkies that you have warmed in water on the stove. I warm mine in a plastic bag in warm water. If you cook it directly in the water it removes some of the smell. The pinkie should be slightly warm to the touch. WARNING: do not use the microwave. Some breeders do this. I don't recommend it, because the microwave cooks from the inside out. Thus, the pinkie is slightly warm to the touch, but is extremely hot on the inside.

8. Try braining the pinkie. use a knife or spoon and open the head up to increase the scent of the pinkie.

9. Try different size pinkies. You can cut a pinkie in half long ways. Small hatchling sometime need to eat items like tails, legs, or middle sections until the grow enough to eat entire pinkies.

10. Try rubbing used bedding from a small lizard cage on the pinkie prior to feeding. Corn snakes eat lizards in the wild. This puts the lizards scent on the pinkie. Most pet stores will let you have a little bedding to try this. I do not recommend feeding the snake lizards though. It is very difficult to get them to switch over.

11. You can buy a feeder lizard (frozen) warm it up, cut it, and rub the blood on the pinkie. You can refreeze the lizard and little by little use less and less scent until it eats unscented pinkies.

12. Use "mouse maker" or "lizard maker". This puts a strong scent on the pinkie. It is a little difficult to get a snake to switch over from scented to unscented. “Mouse maker” is also a little expensive, usually $8 at the store can order online for about $5.

13. Try live of any pinkie rodent you can find.

14. Aggravate the snake. Take the pinkie and softly poke the snake about half way down it's body. The tail should start to rattle and shake. The snake should bite at the pinkie. Use hemostats or tweezers to keep from getting bitten and jumping. Hold the hemostats or tweezers steady if the hatchling grabs it and slowly let go, as to not scare the snake.

The following are extreme measures and should not be undertaken by a novice. If your not sure how to perform these recommendations please let an expert perform and instruct you on how to properly perform.

15. Force feed by hand. Slightly open the snakes mouth with a small probe. The mouth is very fragile so perform carefully. Place the pinkie in its mouth and let it eat it. Sometime forcing the pinkie part way down with the probe is necessary.

16. Force feed with a pinkie pump. Slightly open the snakes mouth with a small probe. Place the pump in its mouth and push a small amount of pinkie into the snakes stomach. A small amount goes a long way. To much with to much pressure will kill the hatchling.

These are just a few recommendations I can think of. If anyone has anything to add, let me know. I will put all recommendations in this document. I will post this once a week during the hatchling season , so that we the advanced (experts if you will) do not have to keep repeating ourselves. Feel free to correct grammar, spelling, and the order. Don’t get me wrong I love to help out, it just gets old repeating myself and seeing pages of posts about the same issue.

Tom

xtremeherps@yahoo.com

47:53 snakes
0.2 cats
0.1 wife (lol)

Well I put the anole in with her and as soon as it ran across the cage she came out of her hide after it. Luckily the lizard was quicker because my son came in about that time and threw a fit because I was feeding "his" lizard to my snake! I had been letting him take care of it the last few days and I guess he has gotten attached to it. So I had to rescue it. But it gave me an idea. Maybe it was the motion, not the smell that attracted her. I will try to move a f/t pinky around her cage with a thread tied to its leg. If she bites the leg will easily pull off and I will just pull the thread out. Will keep everyone posted. Here's her picture.

Well I struck out again. She followed the "pinky on a string" around for awhile but never would bite. Should I feed her the anole? Or will this just make matters worse? What about euthanizing the anole, gutting it, and then trying to scent a pinky that way? Anyone tried this?

Your snake may be getting a little stressed at this point. Wait a couple days then feed it the anole, freeze its tail or just get another, and then work on senting a pinkie later. IMO. It might be a little early(three weeks?) to be worring about this, but unless you know for sure, there's no reason to believe that it even ate three weeks ago. Good luck-smokey

I have kept many fussy snakes in the past, and have had great success with switching scarlet kings, and louisiana milks from anoles to f/t pinks. Every time I use the exact same routine. 1)Feed the snake an anole. 2)Freeze that exact same anoles tail for use in scenting. 3)Two to three weeks later scent a pinkie with the anole's(i guess it actually doesn't belong to the anole any more) tail. Without desturbing the animal, place the pinkie in the cage overnight. Sometimes I have noticed that placing the pinkie under the substrate, I use paper towels, helps(particularly with scarlet kings). 4)If step three does not work then wait a few days and repeat. Usually this will work, if not I'll just keep at it. 5)Once the snake is on live pinks you can then try switching to f/t using that same tail. IMO using the same anoles tail works better than using different lizards. I breed my own mice so I don't worry to much about switching a small milksnake over to f/t pinkies or fuzzies. Hope this will help-smokey

Whats the best way to remove an anoles tail? Have heard they fall off but I have dangled him for several minutes and it is still attached. Buy the way I have been in contact with someone else who purchased 3 of my snakes litter mates. He said 2 took unscented f/t right off the bat and the other 1 will only take live pinks. Never had to scent. So would I be spoiling buy giving her the anole? She was very healthy looking when she arrived and still is, so would it hurt to wait a couple more days to give me time to locate a live pink?

Yea, there should be no problem in waiting a couple days, even a few more weeks. Just remember that the more you handle your snake the faster it will become hungry. My earlier post was mostly concerning snakes that have REFUSED to eat live or f/t pinkies. If you can get a live pinkie in a couple days to a week, then by all means wait on feeding it the anole. I don't really think that feeding it the anole would spoil his/her appatite IMO. In my experiance it will actually help if it won't eat uncented pinkies. For now I'd wait at least a couple days whether feeding it the anole or the pinkie, then try a live pinkie. I don't know of any way to take an anole's tail off besides just pulling it off. Doing this is usually a last resort. Good luck-smokey

Thanks Smokey for all your help. Will try to get a live pink this weekend. Memphis TN is a little over an hour away and I'm sure I can find one there. I love reptiles of all kinds and have not been looking forward to feeding the anole to her. And I really don't want to pull it's tail off. Thanks again and I will let you know how it turns out.

Sam

0.1 Green Iguana
1.0 Veiled Chameleon
1.0 Normal Corn
0.1 Gray Banded King

Went ahead and fed her the anole. You should have seen her strike. Very aggressive. But I did save the tail and froze it. So whats the best way to scent a f/t with an anole tail?

Since you live so far from a source of pinky mice, why not try raising them yourself? Mice have babies very fast, and you can have a couple of small tanks staked up in a corner to facilitate this.

It is some work to raise them, but not too bad. Feed, water, clean... harvest. Take a few live ones to feed, and freeze the others.

Anole scenting: Tail, rub the pinky with the cut end. You can flay it open and work it in good. Wear gloves. Human scent will mess things up. The best scenting method I know of, is to use the gut. You can basically open up the poor lizard and rub the pinky in its gut. Then you can freeze the lizard. Defrost at next feeding and repeat the process. The goal is to work the snake down to feeding on unscented pinkies.

I'd be real surprised if it just didn't go for live unscented pinkies.

Gongrats, Like I posted earler, your best bet is to raise your own mice. I do it and never have to worry about getting live pinks. Good to hear that your snake ate, and feel free to email me if youve got any more questions.-Smokey

Well I finally got a couple live pinkys and she devoured them both with-out having to scent. She is still refusing f/t though. Whats the best way to go from live to f/t?
Thanks.