Questions about Non Feeders at Expo's

[Denim]

Hi,
Im new to this forum but not to corn snakes!! I have 2 Corns and 2 Ball Pythons at the moment but a friend of mine is interested in getting a corn snake too. After visiting an expo near us and holding a bunch of corn snakes and talking to breeders she decided she wanted to get a non eatting corn snake (she felt bad for the ones in the non feeding bin that werent finding homes). She wants to take one and try to get it to eat. I told her some are very very hard to get to eat but if she wanted to try it she could. But I have a few questions myself...What are the chances of getting one to eat? I have force fed Ball Pythons but never a corn snake....is there much difference? Do breeders that sell these non eatting ones try to force feed the babies and if they dont eat still try to sell them?
Thanks for all your time!!

[DogStar5988]

Well I don't know all of the answers to your questions but as far as feeding a non-feeder there are a TON of threads on it here, with almost every possible way to do it. Go to the Advanced Search part of the search button and look for "feeding" in the titles, that should get you started. With hatchlings that are non-feeders force feeding can sometimes be too stressful and kill them anyway, so I suggest trying every other way first. Good luck to you and your friend. ;)

---Kenny

[jaxom1957]

After visiting an expo near us and holding a bunch of corn snakes and talking to breeders she decided she wanted to get a non eatting corn snake (she felt bad for the ones in the non feeding bin that werent finding homes). She wants to take one and try to get it to eat.....Do breeders that sell these non eatting ones try to force feed the babies and if they dont eat still try to sell them?I would strongly urge your friend not to purchase a non-feeder. Although some start eating on their own quite soon, others may go months without doing so. Is your friend willing to watch a hatchling slowly starve to death, or, to prevent that, ready to force feed a snake that can only swallow food the size of a pencil's eraser? Force feeding is not for the faint of heart or the beginner, unless poor luck forces it upon them.

Breeders will usually try the non-physical means of getting a non-feeder to eat: lizard scenting. chicken scenting, washing with hand soap, teasing, braining, etc. They usually haven't the time to devote to force feeding. This means that babies offered at reptile shows as non-feeders are probably not snakes that will be turned around by any of the easy methods. I would not suggest that any novice purchase one.

[Denim]

Ok Thanks for the information!! I will pass it on to my friend!!

[kathylove]

they are a gamble!

I have had some luck with newbies who had time and patience and did everything I told them to do. Sometimes the babies just needed a change of scenery and ate right away. Sometimes they ate after a lot of work. Sometimes they never ate and eventually died.

I am not TOTALLY against a newbie taking on a project such as this - if he or she truly knows what they are getting into, and are suited for what could turn into a bit of an ordeal. But don't do it on a whim. The new keeper needs to have a long conversation with the breeder, and the breeder needs to be willing to freely give advice (all of the feeding threads on this forum are a good start). And the beginner needs to have the ability to realize it might not turn out as hoped. But it will be good experience if the novice thinks he or she will want to get into breeding eventually.

All in all, I do not recommend taking on a "special needs" baby as your first or second snake. Of course, it is always possible that a well established, healthy baby can become a problem feeder and you still have to go through this. But it is not too likely. So you might want to leave the more difficult projects for later, after gaining some experience with a well started baby.

[nlove_3000]

I agree with the above posts but I want to reiterate what was stated about preparing for the fact that some will not survive. I just purchased a few "lots" of problem feeders a couple of weeks ago. I started with 24. One died during shipping so I really started with 23. Since then, the weakest one has passed. Another was force fed and didn't regurge until late the third day, and passed that night. Some of these little guys are heartbreakingly refusing all offers...and that's just nature. Some will thrive and others, for unknown reasons, will refuse to. It's charming (and natural) for us to believe that perhaps all they need is a little individual attention and a "loving home" to kick start them into eating, but it's not always that simple.

Breeders, no matter how many hatchlings they have, do not want to see their problem feeders die. You have to assume that they have already attempted several different feeding presentations. You and/or your friend may have more time to try more things, but remember these guys have not neccessarily just been forgotten and abandoned.

I don't want it all to be negative though. I have had 5 that needed to be force fed and they kept it down, defacated and now we'll try regular feeding again. I have had 8 of them eat on their own so far with the presentation of live prey. After warm baths and other "special attention" the majority have gained weight and most of the others have maintained. So, the successes are possible and incredible -- but the heartbreaks are inevitable also. I definitely wouldn't suggest a problem feeder to a first time owner. There is care involved with these little guys that makes it much more complicated than purchasing a healthy hatchling.

Perhaps if she gets a healthy hatchling and learns the care through her little guy, problem feeders would be a more hopeful endeavor later.

[kathylove]

Even though Mother Nature would make sure that basically only enough babies to replace the parents will survive (very low survival odds when there are 15 - 20 babies each year!) in the wild, most animal lovers don't see it that way when caring for them in captivity. They want to see ALL of the babies thrive! So would I, but that just isn't the way it works. Most of us are too divorced from the natural order of things to be willing to accept that some are just not destined to make it - they would have provided food for other animals in the wild. You have to decide if you are willing to accept life as it really is before taking on projects that are likely to graphically show you the darker side of life, or even when deciding if you want to breed at all. Some parts of the hobby / business just are not as fun as other parts. You have to evaluate your own personality to decide just how much "reality" you can (or want to) handle.