GregF
07-28-2009, 12:48 AM
It's been a while since I last posted but I wanted to share. Slithers, our 2006 Sunglow has finally eaten his first adult mouse. He has had a history of regurges and there were lots of two steps forward and one step back. It took until late last year to get him up over 200g and then he had 2 regurges in December, possibly due to bad mice from a local pet store. We slowly worked him back up to hoppers and then in April he went on a hunger strike for about a month.
We finally discovered that if we rubbed his mice on a piece of raw chicken and put him in a covered feeding container, he would (usually) eat. By mid-July he was up to 282g and had recently shed. Last week, I picked out the smallest adult in the package and he ate it quite happily (after it's close encounter with the chicken). Three days later, the end result of the digestive process was produced and there celebration throughout the land.
If you have a problem eater, don't give up on him (even when well meaning people tell you he won't survive). There is lots of good advice to be found on this forum and by stretching things out for as long as he has, Slithers has taught us a lot himself. I'd especially like to thank Kathy Love (who we bought Slithers from in April 2007), the good people at The Mouse Factory and Nutribac.
We finally discovered that if we rubbed his mice on a piece of raw chicken and put him in a covered feeding container, he would (usually) eat. By mid-July he was up to 282g and had recently shed. Last week, I picked out the smallest adult in the package and he ate it quite happily (after it's close encounter with the chicken). Three days later, the end result of the digestive process was produced and there celebration throughout the land.
If you have a problem eater, don't give up on him (even when well meaning people tell you he won't survive). There is lots of good advice to be found on this forum and by stretching things out for as long as he has, Slithers has taught us a lot himself. I'd especially like to thank Kathy Love (who we bought Slithers from in April 2007), the good people at The Mouse Factory and Nutribac.