Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Last winter, which sucked in New England, there was some discussion of scenting f/t pinks for reluctant feeders with the contents of chicken eggs. Some results follow. Meals were always left in the still of the night until the break of dawn.

8/8 unicolor hatchlings ignored f/t pinks dipped in beaten egg.
To this point they've also refused fish, fish scented pinks, cornsnake scented pinks, and plain pinks. I expect they'll go for fish/pinks when they're ready.

2/3 Eastern hathlings fed after refusing other offerings, including cornsnake scent.

5/5 Texas hatchlings were never offered any because they were all champion feeders.

steve, very few of my uni hatchlings ever fed very easily. i almost always have to assist feed them all for a bit. after awhile though, they seem to catch on and the process would get easier except for 1 or 2 it seemed every year. i don't think it's mice they want initially though they will become more avid in this respect as time goes on as long as you are patient. a couple years ago, i had to assist 1 female for 239 days before she finally got the idea. most however will 'come around' much quicker than that though they test you. bottom line, expect some to be a 'pia' and act accordingly.....the assist method does seem to quicken up things, if that's any help. best of luck and hang in there and experiment. what works on 1 does not necessarily work on others. btw, that female you sent me is kicking my ass. LOL! zilch so far but the summer is young. ;-]

Steve, those are interesting notes. I typically will offer f/t fuzzies as a first meal to my baby eastern indigos. Most of them will refuse at which time I will then offer 1-day old quail. In 90% of the cases I have offered f/t quail the first, time, I have had success. Most of my breeder indigos are on a diet that consists of mice, rats and quail and it seems like the baby indigos really go nuts after quail (so that would make complete sense that many of your easterns took pinks dipped in chicken). Rob

I have had modest luck w/ unicolor hatchlings scenting with lizard and/or frog or toad. To scent w/lizard, I try using a live lizard, rubbing the thawed pinky on the lizard's cloaca. I don't think the lizards care much for this. If that fails, I try using a dead lizard from the freezer (preferable, since freezing for a few weeks eliminates some pathogens). I cut the lizard open and rub the pinky in the body cavity. If that fails, I offer a live lizard. I worry about using lizards for fear that it may increase the difficulty of getting the snake to switch back to mice after tasting the golden apple of its native food, so to speak. Scenting using amphibians goes much the same, except I don't have any frozen frogs, and thawing an amphibian leaves one with a fairly gross dead amphibian, so if it comes to frogs and toads, I try to work with live for scenting. If I must assist feed, I use sections of rat tail, as they slide down pretty easy (do remember to get the hair on the tail pointed in the right direction), and the force-feeding experience is less traumatic than with whole mice. If you have a pinky pump and a blender, that might be better, but rat or mouse tail sections work pretty well.

Thanks for the information. Frog scent I can do easily.