the saga continues........

After getting my Deckert;s ratsnake and anery, all was going well, feeding well, shed, in small plastic tub setups on papertowel substrate. So well that I got my problem baby, Diamond Lil at the end of November from the same source. Was told she had been feeding well and was shown a non-feeder that was being kept back. She looked healthy and weighed 12 grams.
She regurgitated her first 3 pinkies with me, so e-mailed Kathy after getting bad advice from another forum (had been told to wait not more than 4 days before feeding) followed Kathy's advice and used grapefruit seed extract and Lil fed twice successfully.(THANKYOU KATHY!) Then Lil went on hungerstrike, refusing to eat from the 22nd Dec.
Took her back to the shop on 11th Jan, and she ate that night at the shop, again the next week, so waited another week and brought her home on 25th Jan.(shop owner breeds as well as imports and is being very helpful)
She has not eaten at all, am near to despair for her. Temperature is perfect (digital in-out thermometer) She has papertowel substrate, papertowel-roll hides, she drinks and is still alert and active, but totally ignores the f/t pinkies offered. She weighs 10g (at lowest point went down to 8) and am totally stumped on how to help her.
Ratsnake and hypo are yearlings, both feeding well, anery @ 8 months, feeding well, reverse okeetee and carolina are babies, feeding well. Have no access to lizards except my son's leopard gecko so no lizard scenting possible, tried the tuna water, no interest, tried braining, no interest, after reading post on here tried chicken skin scenting, no interest.
Please help us, am aware Lil may have problems I can't overcome and it may get to the point where i have to consider euthanasia, but at the moment am just about ready to try anything while she is maintaining condition and weight I can't give up on her.

Trying euthenasia sounds as if you have given up.

The fact that she has eaten mice before proves that she associates them with food. So no worry there.

It has been only thirteen days and your snake will probably survive for much longer. Put her into a small container with the live pinky and leave her there overnight. Put the container over the heating pad as well.

Have you tried a tiny live pink? I'd put her in the smallest container that will hold her and the pink, with a little hide in it too. At sunset, leave her and a live pinky in a dark, no-traffic area until morning. No peeking. If that doesn't work, wait a couple of days and do the same thing with a live pinky washed with soap and completely rinsed. Good luck.

I she getting ready to shed? My little baby had a poor shed, then refused every attampt at feeding him for almost three weeks. I tried all the recomended tricks. He shed again, then ate a couple days later - no problem. I hope you work it out with your little one. Have you seen how the previous owner fed the snake to get it to eat? I was just wondering since when you took it back she did eat.

I have 2 hatchlings still alive that haven't eaten voluntarily since they hatched back in August. That's coming up to 6 months. You're a looooong way off considering euthanasia.

Find a supplement that you can put in her water to give her a boost while you keep trying - I use Critical Care Formula.

Thankyou for your support, what i meant about euthanasia is that if I cannot help her I will not want her to suffer. In the meantime, she did feed voluntarily for me prior to and after her regurgitation problems, and only difference at the shop was size of container, so she is now in lunch box same size as she was in there, to see if this will help. She has always eaten f/t pinkies (when she eats), not sure about availability of live pinks but will try to find some.
Bitsy, thanks for that message, it helps to know there is still hope for Lil, but if yours never fed voluntarily, did you use pinkie-pump or similar?
Kibyra, cannot tell is she is going into shed because she is a snow, I got fooled before on her last shed.
The owner says he just dropped in a f/t pinkie, same as worked for me before. any ideas on how often to offer food? am trying every 3-4 days at the moment. Thanks for your help.

I've occasionally force-fed with small sections of mouse tail dunked in CCF. I dislike force-feeding as I've never had any luck getting hatchlings to eat voluntarily afterwards. I've never used a pinkie pump - mouse tail is quite thin and I've found it less traumatic than whole pinkies. It's not as nutritional though.

After force-feeding neither of mine put on weight, which makes me think they probably have some sort of internal problems that I won't be able to overcome. In the past when I've just been dealing with "reluctant" hatchlings, most will put on a growth spurt, even after only a couple of sections of mouse tail.

I must stress that force-feeding is only ever my last resort after all the other tricks and tips have failed. As I said, I don't have much faith in the technique for anything other than physical maintenance while hoping that the feeding instinct will kick in.

I put CCF in their water and at the next water change I switch to Nutrobal, which is a probiotic, to keep the gut flora up and aid digestion.

As yours was feeding OK, I'm sure it's just a matter of time before she gets back into the habit. As you say, it could well be a shed cycle. Trying her every 3-4 days sounds right.

I just have to ask, as your wording is kind of ambiguous on the subject, but are all of the snakes you referenced housed together?

oh my word no! they each have seperate tubs on a set of shelves, have made the setup of each identical, except now Lil in smaller tub inside her bigger one to try to replicate the conditions she was kept in at the shop. The shelves are temporary until I build a rack this summer.
The Deckert's has to be on the top shelf so he can see around the room, is the most active and (seemingly) nosy out of the snakes. Am assuming this is because they are more diurnal, so vision more important than to corns, his eyes bigger in proportion too and he often watches if I am moving around in the room.

Can you get lizard maker?

Have you tried live yet? I've had a number of snakes that required live "kick-start" feedings now and then. If you normally thaw f/t in hot water, have you tried dry-thawing? I'd try these things before going to more extreme/expensive measures. :shrugs:

Are the pinkies you are feeding at home from the same source as those fed at the store? Sometimes, a snake can tell the difference and take an instant dislike to one kind. Try getting pinkies from the store to see if your snake will eat them at home for you like it did at the store.

Since it ate recently at the shop, try to think of any different environmental factor that is different at home, but you haven't thought of. Maybe even something seemingly silly, like being in a darker or brighter room, or who knows?

Confining it with a pink in a small deli or lunch bag inside the cage does focus their attention. But I would be wary of putting it on top of a heating pad (as suggested earlier), since the snake can't escape and could get "cooked" if it was a little too warm.

Having no luck finding live pinkies so far, nor lizard maker, but can travel to the shop next week to get the lizard scent and/or frozen pinkies if it will help.
In the shop Lil was in large heated cabinet in rack with lunchbox size tub, so she is now in lunchbox inside her bigger tub as that is the closest I can get to replicating that setup. There is less traffic because she is in my bedroom rather than in shop, but I thought the lighting may be a factor, it must be duller than in the shop with it's flurescent lights.
The really frustrating thing is that after her recovering from regurgitating and eating voluntarily I thought she was going to be ok. not sure of her hatch date, but when I got her in late Nov she had had at least 2 feeds with her breeder (I assume), 3 with the shop (definately) 1 before her regurges (thanks again Kathy for the e-mail), and 2 more before the hunger strike, 2 at the shop. So she has had at most 10 sucessful feeds which gives me some hope that she still has a chance.
Have read some of the threads from breeders and the 3-strikes policy and understand there are very good reasons for it, but Lil not a future breeder in any circumstances, what I am aiming for is a happy healthy pet for the next 15-20 years, and am so grateful that people on here are so ready to help us.
Other snakes all feeding well still, Buck my hypo did a perfect shed last week that I am stil showing off to all family and friends and he is the brightest ginger ever.

I have had several customers who got babies from me that were feeding great on f/t, but refused them at the customer's place. After a couple of weeks, I always suggest tempting them (the snakes, not the customers!) with a live pink. In a few cases, they couldn't find live pinks and the snakes continued to refuse. So they really went out of their way, a couple of them even buying a pregnant female mouse and waiting for babies. Lo and behold! Most of the time they scarfed up the live pinks like they were starved! After a few live pinks, they went back to f/t. I don't know why.

Now I make a point to tell customers that they MUST have a back up plan, just in case the baby insists on a few live to "prime" him. Most of the time they will continue on f/t, but sometimes you just have to find a source of live, even if just for a little while.

Thank you again Kathy! If Lil doesn't feed this week will definately try the live pinky by hook or by crook. It will cause uproar from my boys as we have successfully bred gerbils in the past and they have an elderly pet mouse who's stinky bedding I am going to try to scent the f/t pinky next. Here's the naughty girl;

syringe-fed

I went to local petshop, heart hammering, and asked for a live pinky. Thankfully have been using the shop for pet supplies for years, and sold gerbil, guinea pig and zebra finch babies to them, even getting powdered milk for syringe feeding some rejected gerbils, so was not regarded as the murderer I expected. They had some babies but they are peach fuzzies already, however the assisstant used to keep garters and ball pythons so she explained tube feeding in detail.
Came home and tried it straight away, got 3 mls of chicken puree into Lil using a syringe, was all I had to hand, if this stays inside her will try blenderised mouse in 3 days or so, am just hoping this will work for now.

No smell of regurge yet, will check Lil after work tonight, am hopeful that at least the chicken stayed inside, will blenderise mouse next!

ok, Lil seems to have digested the pureed raw chicken, so now have a question that may be daft, but when I just tried to blend a whole adult mouse, cannot get smooth puree that will syringe so easily. Any tips? Chopped the mouse up as fine as possible first. would it be ok to use the chicken with added vitamins instead if I can't get the mouse to the right consistency? blending mouse made me feel like uke01: but is for Lil, after all

Try to feed it a live peach fuzzy or even fuzzy. Do you not realize that the snake can go for at least a month or two months before you need to even start worrying? Sorry, but the woman at the pet shop sounds like a moron, and it sounds like you were given grossly incorrect advice.