Getting a new baby corn onto frozen

I got my new cornsnake on Sunday, August 31. I tried feeding her a F/T pinkie last night, about a week and half after bringing her home, and she wasn't really interested. (She had fed the day I bought her). I had put her in a tupperware container and left her with the mouse all night, but this morning it was still in there.

Any ideas for how to proceed from here? I think I know most of the tricks, I'm just worried about time frame.

At this point, I'm thinking about trying frozen again tomorrow or Friday, and maybe caving and going to live on Saturday or Sunday if the frozen doesn't take. I'm kind of unclear on how long she can safely go without food before I can start panicking

She's about ten and a half inches, and she's never taken frozen before.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

If your baby will feed on live pinkies and refuses on thawed just wait untill he/she eats two in a session and feed a live first and offer a thawed second. That will convert her in no time. If yours doesn't feed on anyhthing right now I would try anole scented pinks first.

Welcome to the forum!

Have you tried wriggling the f/t to see if she'll be tricked into thinking they are alive?

The first live, then frozen trick sounds good. I'm not really adverse to feeding her live, frozen is just less trouble.

I got up this morning and tried to jiggle it for her with chopsticks, and she was just a little bewildered. She did a couple timid strikes at it, but that was about it.

I'm just concerned because I'm worried about starving her to death. It's been about a week and half and she hasn't eaten, and I'm really wondering about how long she can go before I really need to start panicking.

Thank you two so much for your advice though. As she is my first snake, I appreciate your help.

I would go ahead and try the live pinky. But I would wait at least 2-3 days between feeding attempts so you don't develop any conditioned responses that might make feeding more difficult in the future. New Hatchlings can go for 3-4 weeks or more without eating before you start worrying that they are going to die. I had one that got loose in the house for 3 months and survived and is now doing great.

Once you get the snake to start eating on live pinkys in the new home, then it will be easier to switch over to f/t.
good luck
Mark

This is going to get people upset, but I guess that seems to be the role I play here lately, so . . . There is another way to get a picky eater to go from live pinks to f/t ones.

If your snake is taking live, but refuses f/t, you can encourage the switch by braining the live pinky (while it is still alive, mind you: it needs to be moving with the brain material being exposed for this to work) before you offer it to the snake. At first, the motion will still be the attractive feeding motivator, but after a while, it will associate that smell/taste with its dinner. Then you can offer the snake f/t pinks that are also brained. The smell will be the same, and since snakes associate food by smell more than anything, you'll get them switched over in no time at all.

People get very squeemish about braining live pinks, and I understand the ethics questions the practice raises. However, if you're looking for a fairly sure-fire way to switch them, this is it.

Hope that helps some . . .

for my hatchlings, i cut a f/t pinky in half before defrosting. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. 6 out of 8 of Rich's hatchlings won't eat for me...

Watch out Darin. You'll get PETP after you!


(People for the Ethical Treatment of Pinkies)

Sometimes the best trick in my arsenal to get a live-preferring snake to eat f/t is to just simply scent the pink with actual mouse shavings.

I find that the frozen mice don't really smell like mice to me (sometimes a good thing), but they seem more devoid of the natural mouse scent, and tend to smell more like the inside of my freezer.

So when I thaw it out and get it warm, I toss for a few seconds in a sandwich bag with mousy smelling shavings and then take it out, brush off the stuck-on pieces and attempt the feeding.

They're usually frightened of the new smell when you first put it in there, but once they see it's not moving and go over to investigate further, they attack and eat it readily.

If it just ate last week, I wouldn't worry quite yet. They can go a while without food. Snakes are remarkable creatures.

Best of luck to you though. =)

Thank you so much to everyone who replied, it's nice to know I won't starve the poor darling while dithering about.

I got her to eat this Saturday, mostly because I gave in and bought her a live pinkie. It was great, I put her in her little plastic tub to eat, and then I thought she might like a little privacy so I went to get a cloth to drape around the tub. I came back, and the pinky was gone. Less than fifteen minutes.

(cheers)

Of course, now I'm worrying about feeding timetables and stuff... how long before I need to give her more for instace? Regardless, I feel much better now that she's eaten.