Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Any advice for eastern hatchlings that are reluctant
to feed?

Thanks!

I've heard fish works very well.

Frozen Thawed Salmon left in the area of snakes works wonders. Also, scenting pinks with bait fish entrails I hear works GREAT. Good Luck

The following works well for me. Offer f/t and live pinks/fuzzy mice to all at first. Some will take them. Let some time pass, and then try live goldfish or minnows, which you should have started keeping prior to the eggs hatching...you will have a lot of mortalities with feeder fish and you feed the healthy ones to snakes. Add a piece of fish fillet of dead small fish or fish scented f/t fuzzy in the shallow water bowl, often they eat the live fish and also the fish scented mouse or fish pieces. Many kinds of fish work, and I have used bluegills, bass, trout, anchovy, saury, dace etc. Keep your cool, some may hold out for a few weeks/month, but they will start eventually. I also have offered frozen/thawed bullfrogs, that just metamorphed...they are small and fabulously abundant if you time it right. Once you get a couple meals in them, of fish or other, they usually become more agressive. Also day old quail, or maybe the heads only. I think most neonates need some visual stimulation, a live feeder often does the trick, and follow it with f/t while it is in the mood to feed. Try to get them to take off forceps, but I don't suggest tease feeding like you do with GTP's etc. I have tried keeping multiple neonates together, and the excitement created by a feeder may get a non-feeder to feed...competition? Some folks say "blood and guts" smeared on the food items help. The latter ideas from Robert Bruce and Alan Brutoski, both who have forgotten more about Drys than I know...with luck they will chime in. My way works but is sort of labor intensive, these gentlemen with clutches of 50-70 eggs/year surely know some good methods. PM me if you want more ideas, I am still learning myself but I have had good success with my '09 clutch of couperi. Good luck, Vic H. Imperial Valley, CA.
P.S. rumor has it that couperi really like neonate ratsnakes, maybe someone who breeds a lot of corns would have a runt or mortality that is otherwise healthy to feed? You could make it last by blending into a slurry and scenting more convenient items i.e. mice with it.

It used to be, to me, gospel that hatchling Easterns preferred cornsnakes and cornsnake scent above all else. Last summer it wasn't working. In August I tried f/t green frogs and then green frog scented mice on hatchlings that didn't start on unscented mice. This worked well for some. Finally, last month, on the advice of another breeder I tried soaking f/t fuzzy and pink mice in shallow water with a section of chick. This has worked 100 percent for Eastern hatchlings who hadn't come around on their own or with green frogs. They didn't even need biscuits or slaw.

A recently acquired unicolor hatchling has regarded mice as something like scenery in its cage. But he has done great on f/t green frogs. After his next shed he sould move on to scented mice and finally no-scent.

Because, there's wetlands nearby, the yard always has green frogs and pickerel frogs underfoot. Pickerel frogs have toxins in their skin. Don't use them as feeders.

Hi Steve, very interesting. Maybe the wild populations of indigos and quail are connected, you think?

The best thing that worked for me this year was tossing a couple of live gold fish in their tubs during the morning when they are most alert. All but one of my hatchlings that had no interest in mice went for the fish right away. They didn't even look at thawed out fish; it was the flopping motion that got their attention. From there they switched to scented pinkies.
Good luck.
Robert Harper

I think the most important thing to try is patience. I've never had a couperi hatchling starve itself to death.

I've used herring to scent pinks and they attacked it. I know a local guy who just fed herring for a few years.... way cheaper than rodents and whole animals. Kinda smart. There probably aren't even many parasites that can transfer from a frozen sea-going bait fish into an indigo.

Still... be patient. If your snakes hatched with big, yolk filled bellies, they probably have 3 or 4 months of food in their gut. If they don't feed, leave them for at least a week before you try again.

I'll be trying the herring trick with the mussuranas this week.

Doug T

Doug Taylor Reptiles

Careful, herring contain thiaminase.