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I've got a yearling male that was produced by Dean Alessandrini.....perhaps you could give me some pointers Dean.......I have been able to get him to eat f/t mice, but he won't touch any of the rats I offer him....any suggestions?
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-David Beard

www.herpview.com

i got my yearling spilotes [dean's also] on f/t rats by offering him live rat pups just once. he inhaled them and then i offered him throated [open throats] f/t small rats the next meal. after a bit of indecision, he decided they were good enough and hasn't looked back since. good luck!......

Take the f/t mouse or chick and some white cotton thread...
Get a nice fat needle and sew the head or neck area of the rat to the butt-end of the mouse or chick. As long as you did a decent sew-job, he should eat the whole thing.

I've done this with Spilotes and yt cribos. Sometimes its once or twice before they will take the rat alone, sometimes it's a lot longer. I did this with a wc yt cribo with chicks and rats for a year before she started taking rats alone...but it wasn't that big of a deal, and she gained a lot of weight and size when eating the rats!

Dean must have had a bumper crop! Got my Dean yearling to rats using f/t rat pups. Made sure he was extra hungry. Rat pups for two meals, 1 pup, and a small rat (60 gram) next few. Pounds rats no problem now.

Now if anyone here can help me get my CB Eastern Coachwhips going. Guy I bought them from fed day old pink heads on 10 day schedule, bagged. I'm at a month now and am starting to think about force feeding. I've snake scented, egg scented, tried worms, crickets. I have no access to lizards. Any suggestions?

Coachwhips are not as easy to read as other snakes. Being sight oriented quick movement works best as long as they have settled down. In the wild they are opernitustic feeders but in captivity they stress and shut down. The animal you posted is looking good. Once they get skin folds its time to force the issue, patience, kw53 on coachwhip forum is doing well with easterns. He will be able to help.

You can try this solution... it's not real force feeding.

You put a small pinkie in the mouth of the snake... head-first... and you keep in this position with your fingers snake and pinkie.
Maybe at first the snake struggles and tries to spuck out the mouse... but in many cases and with a few attempts it will begin to swallow the mouse !
It's just their istinct/reflex to ingest a meal !

Try this before force feeding !

Ruggero

Size matters. Go small and work your way up. Use mouse pee to scent. Good luck, actualy shouldn,t need luck they are pigs.

My spilotes was cb from Dr. Phil, and he came to me eating f/t mice, but not enthusiastically. Once he had a few hamster pups, he switched completely onto hamsters. About 4 months ago, he started refusing those. After trying nearly everything, I discovers he looooooves chicks like you wouldn't believe. However, I don't want to feed him them because they're not old enough to have good calcified bones. So what I do is I thaw my rats in hot water and let them get really soggy, so they don't smell noticably ratty to me. Then I cut open a chick and smear the guts (especially yolk sac) on the rat, drop it in, and go away. He hunts for awhile but always ends up eating them, and I can freeze/thaw out my chicks a few times before feeding them to my aquatic turtles or something.

I don't know what it is about chicks, but if he sees me walking by with something yellow in my hand, he acts like it's feeding time and strikes through the glass. I've never, ever seen him this excited about food before.

Alex