glenhead
10-15-2009, 03:52 PM
We have four recalcitrant little @#%%%@s who refuse to eat on their own. Since we would really prefer they not die (especially the $400 one), we're force-feeding them. We've found a couple of things that work, but are always willing to make changes if there's a better way (safer or more effective or easier or whatever). For those of y'all with more experience with force-feeding corn snakes, please chime in if you think we're doing something wrong or have a tweak. This is going to be a long post to give details.
We'd given all four of these guys many attempts with F/T and live pinkies, scented, blah blah blah blah, so we're no longer in the "will they eat" stage. They were losing some serious weight. We've been exclusively force-feeding them for a couple of weeks to put some weight on them, and plan to continue for at least another two or three sessions before we try them on their own again. We feed them every four days. Three of them have shed, and they're all gaining weight.
I'd had experience and success in the '70s with eye-dropper feeding newborn pygmy rattlers (strained beef heart baby food), but we decided that going with mouse or rat parts would give them the smell and taste of food and perhaps transition them more readily. We'd had Mediterranean geckos recommended, and are still on occasional prowl looking for them, but they're apparently in idiotically short supply in our neighborhood. We'll try the gecko-scented pinkies when/if we get one.
We had a couple of frozen rats from when we used to have a Brazilian rainbow boa. Nothing we have anymore is anywhere near big enough for them, so they're just taking up freezer space. Their tails were a good diameter, so that's what we used first. The tails went down nicely with a bit of butter-lube, but we only had enough for one feeding session. Perceived advantages: high calcium from big bones, probably a decent load of fat, at least a bit of protein from the skin and little bit of muscle, easy to manage, more than one meal per tail. Disadvantages: rats are expensive if you're just using the tails!
We have Bob, our big amel, who eats jumbo mice or small rats, and now have three other adults that eat adult mice. We've Manxed all the mice (cut the tails off at the butt) and used the tails, cut in half and tied together with a hair. Again, lubed with butter they go down semi-easily. Perceived advantages: pretty much the same as rat tails, and we go through adult mice more quickly than we could rats (although I just bought nine frozen small rats for Bob, so that'll give us enough rat tails for a couple of weeks). Disadvantages: one snake per tail, so the tails go very quickly at four tails every four days.
Lesley has found a good technique for getting the front half of a pinkie down the hatch, using a chopstick as a pushrod. She'd started with toothpicks as pushrods, but the chopsticks support better and there's no fear of skewering the snake from through penetration. She tried doing a whole pinkie (using a toothpick) for the three snakes that are big enough (one of the four is nine inches long and a bit under five grams, so she only gets half a pinkie anyway), but the whole pinkie rumples and is too sloppy/floppy to work. She hasn't tried a whole pinkie on a chopstick.
So what do y'all experts think? As I said, we have sufficient rat tails for about four more feeding sessions, so we're good for a couple of weeks at least before we have to go back to pinkies. Anything we should be doing differently?
Thanks for your advice!
We'd given all four of these guys many attempts with F/T and live pinkies, scented, blah blah blah blah, so we're no longer in the "will they eat" stage. They were losing some serious weight. We've been exclusively force-feeding them for a couple of weeks to put some weight on them, and plan to continue for at least another two or three sessions before we try them on their own again. We feed them every four days. Three of them have shed, and they're all gaining weight.
I'd had experience and success in the '70s with eye-dropper feeding newborn pygmy rattlers (strained beef heart baby food), but we decided that going with mouse or rat parts would give them the smell and taste of food and perhaps transition them more readily. We'd had Mediterranean geckos recommended, and are still on occasional prowl looking for them, but they're apparently in idiotically short supply in our neighborhood. We'll try the gecko-scented pinkies when/if we get one.
We had a couple of frozen rats from when we used to have a Brazilian rainbow boa. Nothing we have anymore is anywhere near big enough for them, so they're just taking up freezer space. Their tails were a good diameter, so that's what we used first. The tails went down nicely with a bit of butter-lube, but we only had enough for one feeding session. Perceived advantages: high calcium from big bones, probably a decent load of fat, at least a bit of protein from the skin and little bit of muscle, easy to manage, more than one meal per tail. Disadvantages: rats are expensive if you're just using the tails!
We have Bob, our big amel, who eats jumbo mice or small rats, and now have three other adults that eat adult mice. We've Manxed all the mice (cut the tails off at the butt) and used the tails, cut in half and tied together with a hair. Again, lubed with butter they go down semi-easily. Perceived advantages: pretty much the same as rat tails, and we go through adult mice more quickly than we could rats (although I just bought nine frozen small rats for Bob, so that'll give us enough rat tails for a couple of weeks). Disadvantages: one snake per tail, so the tails go very quickly at four tails every four days.
Lesley has found a good technique for getting the front half of a pinkie down the hatch, using a chopstick as a pushrod. She'd started with toothpicks as pushrods, but the chopsticks support better and there's no fear of skewering the snake from through penetration. She tried doing a whole pinkie (using a toothpick) for the three snakes that are big enough (one of the four is nine inches long and a bit under five grams, so she only gets half a pinkie anyway), but the whole pinkie rumples and is too sloppy/floppy to work. She hasn't tried a whole pinkie on a chopstick.
So what do y'all experts think? As I said, we have sufficient rat tails for about four more feeding sessions, so we're good for a couple of weeks at least before we have to go back to pinkies. Anything we should be doing differently?
Thanks for your advice!