Hatchlings

Hi, I'm new to the forum and not sure if I'm posting in the right place.
At the beginning of his month we had our first clutch of eggs hatch and now we have 20 hatchlings. They've all had their first shed and we started feeding about 2 weeks ago. 19 out of 20 have fed at least once but the other is completely refusing. We have been reading about tease feeding and force feeding but nothing is working. He just bring the whole thing up again. One of the others fed once a couple weeks back and now is also refusing to feed. We've looked into getting a pinkie pump but as this is more than likely the one and only time we will be breeding (the male died shortly after the first egg hatched) my other half feels it would be a waste of money to spend so much on one hatchling, despite my protests. Does anyone have any advice? I don't want to watch the poor thing starve to death.
Thanks

How often are you offering food? Can you list a timeline, with when, and how you have offered food? What exact methods have you tried?
When did they hatch?

If you only started feeding two weeks ago I can't imagine that it's gotten to the stage where a pinkie pump is needed yet; that's very much a last resort kinda' thing, as I understand it. Two weeks really isn't that long when it comes to snakes, and if you try to feed too often, especially with invasive methods like tease-feeding/assist-feeding, you can end up putting them off even more.

But yeah, if you let us know how often you have been trying to feed and with what method, we (or someone more experienced than me) will be able to help you out

Here's a list of things to try that Nanci developed.

http://www.cornsnakes.com/forums/showthread.php?t=131573

Welcome to the forum and best wishes.

Hey there Steviesnake. How ya been?

Can't add anything to what anyone before me said as they kinda said it all, except for the need to have PATIENCE! You'd be surprised how even a hatchling can pick up on your anxiety. (This coming from a person who's as nervous as virgin at a prison rodeo!!! :eek1.

Remember: a watched pot never boils!!!

Also, 19 out of 20 so far is an AWESOME success rate! You are definitely doing SOMETHING right. So cheer up!!!

I'll bring a part of the glass is half empty aspect into this...

In the wild, not all offspring survive. This can be as simple as predation, to not finding an adequate home range for food and shelter, to possible internal mechanisms that lend to merely failure to thrive.

In a captive situation we like to "think" we're providing everything necessary for offspring survival. Even then, breeders can and do have hatchlings that just fail to thrive. I've had it in lizards when I was breeding a couple species at a museum I used to work at, to within the last few years in my personal collection where I had some corn snake hatchling that just refused all tricks to eat. The corns wound up being force fed adult mouse tails and legs, but even then at the end of the day those individuals passed.

I'm not saying this is your case, but at least keep in the back of your head the ability to be mentally prepared that this could end up the case. The first Tremper-line albino leopard gecko died as a hatchling, with her heterozygous brother being the re-origination of the trait. Now, as much as I don't like admitting it, that line is the most prevalent strain of albinism in leopard geckos (out of the 2 other known incompatible strains).

HerpsOfNM said:

I'll bring a part of the glass is half empty aspect into this...

In the wild, not all offspring survive. This can be as simple as predation, to not finding an adequate home range for food and shelter, to possible internal mechanisms that lend to merely failure to thrive.

In a captive situation we like to "think" we're providing everything necessary for offspring survival. Even then, breeders can and do have hatchlings that just fail to thrive. I've had it in lizards when I was breeding a couple species at a museum I used to work at, to within the last few years in my personal collection where I had some corn snake hatchling that just refused all tricks to eat. The corns wound up being force fed adult mouse tails and legs, but even then at the end of the day those individuals passed.

I'm not saying this is your case, but at least keep in the back of your head the ability to be mentally prepared that this could end up the case. . . .

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Wow! Sometimes as being a cornsnake owner who has hatchlings in that very captive situation you are referring to, I also need to keep IN THE FOREFRONT of what mind I have left, exactly what you stated.

That was an awesome response! I don't think it's necessarily a "part of the glass is half empty aspect," but a perspective which is seated in REALITY! And I, for one, thank you for that! (Though admittedly, from time-to-time, I LOVE to ESCAPE from reality! :nyah

axis1 said:

Wow! Sometimes as being a cornsnake owner who has hatchlings in that very captive situation you are referring to, I also need to keep IN THE FOREFRONT of what mind I have left, exactly what you stated.

That was an awesome response! I don't think it's necessarily a "part of the glass is half empty aspect," but a perspective which is seated in REALITY! And I, for one, thank you for that! (Though admittedly, from time-to-time, I LOVE to ESCAPE from reality! :nyah

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Thank you...

I'm only going to flirt with this as this topic gets hashed and re-hashed within various herp communities. I state that this is a glass half empty view as it starts to beg the question of a darker topic, that as I said, gets hashed and re-hashed; that topic is culling.

I'm going to leave that topic as quickly as I brought it about. I have my understanding of it and what it means to me, and I am confident and accepting in it. Unfortunately, everyone has different views and the topic can get blown out of proportion very quickly, even among those that agree.

I'm biting my tongue on a number of elements within the topic of culling, and again, I'm leaving it at that. I've seen the discussion result in people that were friends lose that friendship, seen people that were absolutely a wealth of knowledge and resource leave a given herp community, up to and including personal threats and individuals getting temp and permanent vacations from forums, listservs, and user groups. I'm here still rambling, but I genuinely hate to broach the topic....I'm sure googling can possibly satisfy things. Awkward LOL.

HerpsOfNM said:

Thank you...

I'm only going to flirt with this as this topic gets hashed and re-hashed within various herp communities. I state that this is a glass half empty view as it starts to beg the question of a darker topic, that as I said, gets hashed and re-hashed; that topic is culling.

I'm going to leave that topic as quickly as I brought it about. I have my understanding of it and what it means to me, and I am confident and accepting in it. Unfortunately, everyone has different views and the topic can get blown out of proportion very quickly, even among those that agree.

I'm biting my tongue on a number of elements within the topic of culling, and again, I'm leaving it at that. I've seen the discussion result in people that were friends lose that friendship, seen people that were absolutely a wealth of knowledge and resource leave a given herp community, up to and including personal threats and individuals getting temp and permanent vacations from forums, listservs, and user groups. I'm here still rambling, but I genuinely hate to broach the topic....I'm sure googling can possibly satisfy things. Awkward LOL.

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Whoa, it's OK. We're adults here (I hope). I just appreciate you putting into perspective what WASN'T said previously in the thread. I don't know what part of the topic you're referring to and you don't have to anymore, as I see you wanna leave it alone, but what you said was important for folks who are going through the experience of challenging feeders to, as you said, keep in the backs of their minds, if only to reassure them that it may have nothing to do with their actions or that they might be "bad snake parents or keepers." I tried for almost 3 months to feed (and assist- and force-feed) 2 hatchlings who ultimately passed anyway and I initially beat myself up for it for weeks because I was told that I was too aggressive and impatient. While the latter was true, I'm uncertain of the former and I go back & forth in my mind. However, your comment helped ME to put that in perspective, as I believed it might help others also.

Just sayin'.

Thanx again!!!

I understand the reasons behind culling, but Mother Nature sure can be a tough old broad sometimes.

DLena said:

I understand the reasons behind culling, but Mother Nature sure can be a tough old broad sometimes.

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Don't really know what "culling' is and surely didn't wanna ask HerpsOfNM who made it sound akin to farting in church! :eek1: If I were to guess based upon the context I see it being used, I would say it had something to do with a Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest OR a conscious effort by human beings into making an Unnatural Selection of a sort. (Am I in the ballpark?)

However, While you observe that Mother Nature can be a tough old broad sometimes, I have stated repeatedly that she can also be a cruel, heartless Bee-atch!!! (At least it SEEMS like that sometimes, no?).

Culling, I believe, is the deliberate killing of animals that are deformed, ill, failing to thrive or superfluous to requirements. However it's possible that I'm misinformed or using a different definition.

culling
(ˈkʌlɪŋ)
n
1. (Environmental Science) the reduction of the size of an animal population

2. (Agriculture) killing

3. killing

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

Thank you all for your informative responses! However, there ARE instances in which culling simply means letting go of the smaller ones (for example in fishing or digging for certain sized shellfish) which doesn't always involved a concerted or deliberate effort to kill off a certain category of animals. On the other hand, I can see where some would say it's a kind of "mercy killing," if the deformity were bad enough to impact the quality of life enough.

OK. :eek1: I can see why HerpsOfNM didn't wanna discuss this. However, we ARE all adults and for informational purposes, it's a valid topic.

Thanx again to those of you who took the time to respond!!

we ARE all adults

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Yes this is true but have you ever read threads on the BOI? My gods...you would think some people never left high school...some information is a delicate subject, and people don't handle it as well as others.

Zombiegirl said:

Yes this is true but have you ever read threads on the BOI? My gods...you would think some people never left high school...some information is a delicate subject, and people don't handle it as well as others.

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I understand the need to "play" as all work and none of it can make me a very dull boy indeed. However, I hear ya! I guess also that there's a part of me that's entertained by grown ass men & women regressing to a part of their histories where hormones ruled! (Never got that bad that I could sit through Jerry Springer though, so I believe there HAS to be a middle ground).''

Seriously speaking, who am I to judge? I still jump out of perfectly good airplanes multiple times every other weekend from April through October and I'm 55 years old!! :eek1: