Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I had a clutch of 18 hatch in early July and 17 of the snakes ate without a problem and one wouldn't eat. It has been over 4 months and the little guy still will not eat. I force part of a tail every week ( last 8 weeks) and he still doesn't want to eat. I tried forcing a small pinkie and it didn't work (and all the other tricks - brown bag, scenting, braining, teasing, and begging). I have a hard enough time with the tail. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance!

Brian

Have you tried a small pinky head? Or a small pinky head with the snake inside a deli cup? Don't always force stuff down it's troat, my experience point to the fact that if you constantly need to force feed a corn snake then you are hurting more than helping. Corns aren't that type of species to not accept food or go on long hunger strikes in the regular season. Have you tried anoles? And scenting the anole on a pink? Or dwarf hampster pinkies?

Try a LIVE pinky ( I had four non-eaters out of my golden corn clutch that wouldn't touch scented, brained, thawed, or lizards.) Then one day I said what the heck, lets throw in some live newborn pinkies and see what happens: Three out of the four started eating and only one eventually died (and it helped save one of my stubborn eastern kingsnake babies). So now I have 12 out of 13 babies that are excellent eaters (I thought I would end up with only 9 out of 13 so I was quite happy)

Pic of one of the het (for gold) babies,

Zee

Another trick is to put a little tunafish water ( a few drops from a can of tunafish) on the pinks before introducing the pink to the sanke. I had been doing the mouse tail trick for about 8 weeks on some hatchlings that were not taking pinkies for me. One died about 3 weeks ago but I tried the the tuna fish water trick last week and got the other 4 going. Took the pinks right down. I have done this again since the intial try and they took them fast so this trick is getting some merit for me.

It has also helped for some problem eaters that are Albino Nelson Milksnakes. They took the 'Tuna-Mice" within 10 minutes.

Good luck and let us know how it goes....
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Centrewood

2.3 Albino Nelsoni Milksnakes
0.1 Snow Corn
0.2 Sunglow Corns
1.1 Albino Motley Corns
3.3 '04 Albino Corn hatchlings
1.0 '02 Albino Stripe Corn
0.0.12 Sunglow/Moltey Corn Hatchlings
0.0.17 Snow/Amel-Het Anry Hatchlings
0.0.4 Sunglow/Amel-Het Anery hatchlings
0.0.12 Motley/Stripe hatchlings
0.0.7 Albino Nelsoni Milksnake eggs simmering
9.7 Bearded Dragons
Bunch.Bunch Crested Geckos
0.1 Great wife
2.0 Great boys
0.0.2 dogs (they're great too!!)
and Corey's Yellow Knee Tarantula "Fang"

I had a clutch of 6 05' babies. All problem feeders. Wouldn't take scented pinkies, brained or f/t lizards. And I have no access to live pinkies. All of them started getting force fed a mouse tail once a week. Then on the same day like 2 weeks later, 3 of them died. I assume it was something to do with the mice?

After that, one of them was used as ringneck food.

Then I decided I would hang onto the remaining two. They were force fed 1 mouse tail every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Then one of them got loose. I found him dead about a week and a half later.

The remaining one still gets a mouse tail usually twice a week. I plan on offering it a brained pinky within a week. If no takes I'll probably hibernate him and hope he comes out with an appetite.
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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
www.freewebs.com/mikesnake
www.freewebs.com/badyear2005