Reptile & Amphibian Forums

o found the snake and i am trying to feed it i is 10 inches long wat do i feed it and if is doesnt eat should i force feed it

First off...force feeding should be a last resort.
Have you exhausted all alternatives like:

- cupping
- braining pinks
- lizard scenting

etc?

If you feel you are at the point where it's critical to force feed a 10" baby milk, mouse tails are much easier to force feed than pinks.

Dip a f/t mouse tail in vegatable oil for lubrication, and dust it with reptile vitamins and calcium. gently pry open the snake's mouth and place the thick end of the tail in the snakes
mouth. It very well may suck it right down. If not...it should not be to difficult to work it down the snake's throat.

There's not a great amount of nutrition in a mouse tail, but it's better than nothing.

After a few meals, hopefully the snake will start feeling hungry.

If not...you can try small pinky heads for variety. They go down easier than a whole pinky, which tend to squash all to hell when you try to force feed to a very small snake.

good luck

I just noticed that you said "you found" the snake.
Being it's wild caught, I would highly suggest that you turn it loose if you don't have luck very soon.

It's different if it's captive born, but it's not really fair to risk a wild snake dying on you when it would do just fine if turned loose.

>>o found the snake and i am trying to feed it i is 10 inches long wat do i feed it and if is doesnt eat should i force feed it

I wouldn't try forcefeeding it until it's refused food for a couple of months. Forcefeeding's tough on a snake, and your snake doesn't have to eat immediately, even though i know that's always comforting to the owner. Patience will pay off for you in all likelihood.

First, you should find somewhere to buy frozen or live newborn mouse pinkies and see if it will eat one. There are a variety of steps to induce feeding if it doesn't take it the first day you offer it: wash the pinky with unscented soap, rinse thoroughly and offer again; offer at night just before lights out; put the snake in a deli cup (with airholes) and the pinky and leave them together overnight; try live; try dead;take a dead pinky and poke a hole in its head with a toothpick and squeeze out a little fluid and smear that over the pinky and offer it that way. If none of these steps succeed and you live somewhere where you can catch lizards, try breaking off a lizard tail, crushing it between your fingers, and smearing the results on the pinky and offering in each of the ways listed above. Catch a baby lizard and freeze it for at least a week (to kill parasites it might have) and thaw it and offer it to the snake, in each of the ways outlined above.

Remember you need to wait a day between each of these methods, so the new introduction method has a better chance to catch the snake's attention.

And remember if your snake looks like it's "in shed", if its skin is cloudy or its colors not clear and bright, it won't eat during that time anyway.

Most of all, don't get impatient. Your snake can go a while without food.

by the way, what kind is it? (if you don't know, tell us where you live and someone will tell you what kind it is)

good luck
terry

it is an eastern also i have a 30 incher that i caught also bot easterns thasnks for the help but if eats a cricket what happens

A Eastern________? If it's an eastern king or milk I wouldn't count on crickets.

if it's an eastern milk snake it's very unlikely that it's going to eat crickets.

pinks or lizards would be the natural prey.

they may take a few insects in the wild, but it's almost impossible to get them to eat them in captivity.

Try Skinks.

I assume it is a baby milk snake you've caught. I found one myself a few weeks back. Have you tried a pinky at all? I know the snake looks tiny but mine, about 9 or 10 inches, took a small pinky the first time I offered it. Find the smallest one you can get. Put the snake in a small container with the pinky after dark and leave it alone. I fed this one on frozen/thawed the second and third feedings with no problem at all.
Good luck!

If you think the snake is too small to take a pinkie, try cutting the pink in 2 or 3 pieces or try a mouse tail. But a 10''er should be able to take a pinkie.