Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have four milksnakes, an albino nelsons trio and a pueblan. One of my female nelsons and the pueblan are about 20 inches, and eat readily on fuzzies all the time. The other two are smaller, 12 inches or so, and are harder. The little male albino nelsons has been really hard for me to feed. First, he regurgitated twice in a row. I now know that, after regurgiation, to wait ten days to feed again. But since then, he has been really hard to get to eat more often than every ten days. The only time that he ate more often than that was when I had to cut a pinkie in half, because all I had was larger pinkies. This is really annoying to me, since he isn't going to grow and breed if he won't eat.
Are there any tricks that you all could suggest? I've searched for some powder to restore bacteria after regurgitation, but haven't found any. I do have a breeding colony of mice, but they are new and haven't produced any live pinks or I'd try that. Any ideas on how to get him eating other than lizard scented and brained (which I've tried)?
My other nelsons that I got from the same breeder (I think they're sibblings, one from the first clutch the other from the second), has eaten almost three times as much, and is much more robust. The male is in shed right now, so I'm not really bothering trying now.

Thanks in advance,

Taylor

Hi,
You mention lizard scenting... are the little ones only eating lizards at this point, or will they reliably take small pinkies? If they're not on lizards now, I'd keep it that way... lizard scenting would be a step in the wrong direction. I actually have an adult Sinaloan that has frequent finicky spells... sometimes it seems like all she wants to eat is the tiniest of tiny f/t pinkies. What I do is take a larger food item (freshly killed rat pups are a favorite), split a thawed pinky open, and rub the blood and guts all over the rat pup. I then give her the halves of the pinky, which she devours greedily, then leave her alone with the scented rat pup. Nature usually takes its course. Your little ones could probably start eating day-old rat pinks using that method. It's far better to feed rats than mice, in my opinion... a baby rat has soft, easily digestible bones, plus a stomach full of milk, another easliy digestable calcium source. Rats have less hair and fat, gram for gram, than a mouse of the same size. Plus, if you're breeding, rats make much cooler pets, and there are a lot of fringe benefits due to the fact that it takes less time to get a good-sized feeder from a rat.

Good luck!
Nate

Hi,
Thanks for your response, and thanks to the people who emailed me. I have not yet started lizard scenting yet. Now my one 9/03 male albino nelsons is the only problem feeder. My 7/03 female het and other two milks eat like pigs, every other day, although I generally don't feed them that often as they get overly fat.
About the rats, I am picking out the tiniest pinks for the little male, so I assumed that rat pinks are way too big. I would agree that say, giving a larger snake rat fuzzies instead of adult mice would be easier on them, but do you think a little rat pink would have less hair and bone than a mouse pinky? I'll be posting in the feeder food discussion forum, as I'm pretty interested in this.
My other milksnakes were a bit difficult to get feeding. I'm planning on just getting this guy feeding reliably once a week, and slowly cut it down to every 3-4 days, age might also help, as my older ones (just a few months older) grab and slam around any food I give them.

Thanks,
Taylor