Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know this question gets asked a lot, so sorry ahead of time. I have a baby copperhead that will just not eat. I think I've tried every trick in the book, but I'm hoping someone might have something else up their sleeve. Any unusual scenting ideas or anything like that?
Thanks,
Will

I have dealt with MANY problematic feeders ranging from baby copperheads to baby bamboo vipers and everything in between (we love raising baby venomous snakes at our facility!). In most cases, just exercising a lot of patience is your best "trick". But, with that being said, here's a few things that we have done with fairly good success (relative to baby copperheads):

Sometimes, you have to get them kick started on live lizards; not a great thing, but you do what you have to do. Small anolis (brown) work fairly well as do the smaller species of skink and scleropis. You can quickly graduate to scenting by keeping some frozen lizards in a ziplock bag, or, make a "lizard shake" by blending a lizard (gross but like I said, you do what you have to do) that is kept frozen (like ice cubes) and when its feeding time, you take a little piece of the frozen lizard shake and smear it all over a f/t pink...many copperheads will find this irresistable. Have your tried placing the copperhead in a small plastic container (just large enough to allow the snake to loosely coil) and place a f/t and perhaps warmed up pinkie with its brain exposed? This also works quite well. Let me know if these work.

Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center
Lake Forest, IL

>>I know this question gets asked a lot, so sorry ahead of time. I have a baby copperhead that will just not eat. I think I've tried every trick in the book, but I'm hoping someone might have something else up their sleeve. Any unusual scenting ideas or anything like that?
>>Thanks,
>>Will
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Rob Carmichael, Curator
The Wildlife Discovery Center at Elawa Farm
Lake Forest, IL

although I tried braining and scenting an so on, I couldn't find any lizards small enough for him, but the pet store had some house geckos in that were just barely small enough, and woulnd't ya know it's just what he wanted. I'm really suprized he got the thing down considering it was half as big as him. Thanks for your help though!
Will

I got some baby copperheads last summer, and after a few forced feedings out of necessity, would you believe they JUST ate voluntarily for the first time last week? I tried frogs, and brains and anoles and other kinds of frogs and live and prekilled and "deli-cupping" (confined space with food item) and all sorts of other things.
I've been worried about them all along, until the other day, when they ate a f/t fuzzy for the first time. I have to admit, I put them in the hands of my "venomous mentor" and his magic finally paid off. Thanks Chris!!!!!!!!!
Patience grasshopper.......
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Tom
TCJ Herps
"The more people I meet, the more I like my snakes"