Reptile & Amphibian Forums

S/he still won't eat an appropriately sized Mouse?

I Had this problem with a few of my snakes and I've found a solution that worked for me this past month (and still works) so I decided to share, and hopefully it'll work for someone else.

Please note I tried this with Milk Snake...

I have a "tangerine Dream" Honduran that would only feed on fuzzies, hoppers, and rat pinks although she's big enough to take adult mice.

so I decided to use the scenting method... 3 scenting methods worked with her

1. I dipped the adult mouse into the rat pink's guts
2. I rubbed the rat pink all over the head of the adult mouse
3. I pulled the skin off the rat pink and placed in on the head of the adult mouse

I have a Het. Albino Nelsoni female that is big enough to feed on weanlings but would only take fuzzies or Pinkies.

I rubbed a fuzzie all over the head of a weanling... she was a bit wary at first but she eventually took it

Lastly My Het. Albino Nelsoni Male, I blame myself for his reluctance to feed on anything but Rat Pinkies... he's always had a strong feeding response, one day I got my hands on some live rat pinks and he was the only snake that took um... I froze the rest of um and feed him an exclusive rat pink diet for a while, when I tried to get him back to mice it was a no go.

Again I did these
1. I dipped the adult mouse into the rat pink's guts (didn't work)
2. I rubbed the rat pink all over the head of the adult mouse (worked)
3. I pulled the skin off the rat pink and placed in on the head of the adult mouse (worked)

NOTE: I tried an unscented mouse with all of the above snakes and no lucky various times... I hope with time the switch over to unscented mice.

So the conclusion: what ever food Item they seem to be stuck on, use it to scent the food item they should be eating.

Now if I could only find a way 2 get my snakes that only feed on p/k to take f/t!

~ZF

Go away old man, hahahahahahahahahahaha

If you offer a good hotspot they will get really hungry and will eat a doorknob.

I could go not about when I was a kid, naw. FR

Actually i tried that, for none feeders and that didn't work... the problem isn't that the snakes don't get hungry or don't eat... it's that they don't feed on food items "we" think is appropriate for them.

Like an adult Brooksi that would only feed on fuzzie mice

~ZF

Thats exactly what I am talking about. I find that individuals that are picky, are picky for one or both of two simple reasons. One is improper temp range, the other is improper hydration. Either or both can and do cause individuals to become picky.

I am not saying that is your problem. But it may be. FR

Interesting stuff Zenny...It all seems logical....

And Rainer....See...You can scent a mouse with a mouse......LOL

John Lassiter

Hes not scenting a mouse with a mouse,instead he was scenting a mouse with a rat pup......Yeah I know a technicallity(sp)
Toby

Scent a Mouse with a Mouse with my Het. albino female... i used fuzzies to scent weanlings... she won't take the weanling without it but she took it when it was scented with the fuzzy... strange but true.

~ZF

He did scent a smaller mouse (pink) to weaned and adult mice....
But that has nothing to do with why I posted that.....LOL
The reason I stated that was because Rainer ragged on me when I first posted (actually Chris G. did) my feeding techniques.
I stated that I scented a mouse with a pink instead of a mouse with a lizard....Rainer was just screwing around as I was here.....
John Lassiter

AHHHHHH gotcha now

Zenny,
Here are a few ideas that worked well for me. One thing I do is use a feed bowl full for my feeders as I go around feeding. I have placed said bowl in the picky feeders cage and let the feed on whatever they wanted. Once they are responding to that I use forceps to put the larger food item in line to be fed on next. They tend to get it after a feeding or two. For your "live only" feeders try placing a F/T in some dirty bedding before you offer it to the snake. This also works when trying to switch from mice to rats.
Later Jason

~ZF