Reptile & Amphibian Forums

iv tried everything possible with pinkies but nothing is working so iv resorted to a pinky press and im getting sick of it and i was wondering if someone can help me b/c this is getting old fast...

Get a can of moist cat food and a couple of boiled eggs. Put them in a blender. You might want to add a dash of calcium. Puree, adding as much water as needed to make a thick snake pablum. Buy a Monoject 412 or similar feeding syringe and cut the tip to fit the size of your snake's mouth. Suck an appropriate amount of pablum into the syringe, stick the tip of the syringe down the snake's throat and push the plunger. Do try to make sure the pablum goes down the snake's throat, not out the sides of its mouth or through its nose. When you remove the syringe, you should make sure the snake does not regurgitate the pablum. You can do this by holding its jaws closed while gently stroking the food toward the snake's stomach.

Freeze the pablum you don't use. A week later, warm it up and repeat the process. Do that until you need to make up more pablum or the snake starts eating on its own. The pablum is cheaper, though. It is also less of a hastle and appears to be just as nutritious as pinkies. Feeding syringes are cheap and may be obtained from some pet stores and/or veterinarians. The reason I mention Monoject by name is because it has a long tip that can be cut to size. The part you put in the snake's mouth should be about 7/8 inch long. Any tip shorter than 3/4 inch will be too short to be usable.

Doc

Have you tried the paper bag thing, braining, scenting with a lizard? I had one jungle baby refuse food for a couple months until I scented with an anole. Just recently I had two baby corns refuse every trick of mine that usually works, they were looking like crap so I cooled them. That's right, I put them in my mini fridge along with my adults. The temp was right around 42-45 degrees. They were in there for a month, took them out, warmed them up gave them water then pinkies and they ate them no problem and continued to eat like champs. I was iffy on the whole deal but those snakes were wasting away and I figured it couldnt hurt, they'd either die or not. My old vet, Dr Klingenberg said he always suggests cooling for problem eaters, even hatchlings. I'm sold!

Sarah
-----
FireDrake Exotics
www.FireAndLilac.com

thanks for the information... i appreciate all of it and ill post a little bit later to tell u if it works or not. I'm probably going to keep force feeding it but ill use the cat food mixture. I have no place to cool the snake down to that temperature so thank again...

The cooling method does work. And if the snake refuses after being cooled you should give him/her a few mouse tails to get their digestive juices "flowing." force feeding is a dangerous practice. your snake will eventually die from stress. most force fed snakes never get in the habit of feeding on their own. so if U continue this for long you will have to force feed your snake till it dies. I've had it happen to me, I had a beautiful banana cali king, I force fed her for an entire year, one morning I came to find her in her hide cave. cooling is a good method, scenting and braining as well.
hope u get your snake to eat
~ZF