Finally, a Keeper!!!

Nice little hoggie! I wish you the best of luck with it. My husband found this southern hognose around Mother's Day and gave it to me. I tried everything to get it to eat...mice and rats of various appropriate and smaller sizes...live, F/T, brained, scented with everything imaginable, live lizards, frogs and toads, even various insects I found outside. Nothing. After almost 2 months and the poor snake starting to show weight loss, I let him go back to the wild.

No luck yet with toad, anole, tuna, tree frog-scented, some brained, some not, FT. I am going to go through all that on lives starting next week. I like her so much- if I end up releasing her, I will probably buy one that is feeding on mice. On the Hognose forum, there are so many that are not eating right now, anyway. I have totally stopped handling her, and have moved her viv to a quiet place, and am offering her feedings in her viv and leaving her alone with the meal all day. No luck yet, but it's only been a couple weeks. She is very shy. I have not tried anything besides scented mice yet- not "real" prey.

Nanci

Suckered her in with a toad-scented live fuzzy! Success at last- at the three week mark.

Nanci

excellent!

Originally Posted by Tula_Montage

Easterns are NEVER likley to switch to mice readily, especially since its coming up to winter. But um best of luck....

Originally Posted by Nanci

Suckered her in with a toad-scented live fuzzy! Success at last- at the three week mark.

Nanci

NEVER, Tula? May I ask what experience you have with feeding WC Easterns that qualifies you to make scareposts like that?

Nanci, congrats on getting the little thing to eat! She's a cutie

Very cute!! Congrats on getting it to eat finally!

Since live toad-scented mice worked, what about using some sort of long feeding tongs (see pic below) and wiggle a toad-scented f/t around? It may fool your snake into thinking it's a live mouse. He may be too smart, but you never know.. it may or may not work but it might be worth a try.

I hope he/she continues to eat for you, and good luck on getting it converted over to f/t!

Lisa

Originally Posted by Silt

Very cute!! Congrats on getting it to eat finally!

Since live toad-scented mice worked, what about using some sort of long feeding tongs (see pic below) and wiggle a toad-scented f/t around? It may fool your snake into thinking it's a live mouse. He may be too smart, but you never know.. it may or may not work but it might be worth a try.

I hope he/she continues to eat for you, and good luck on getting it converted over to f/t!

Lisa

Ugghhh... Am I ever stupid. I never even bothered to pay attention to the dates on all of these posts. Sorry for drudging up a two month old thread.

Lisa

That's ok. As it turned out, she did _not_ eat the fuzzy- it crawled away and died and rotted, and the next day when I got home from work it smelled like there was a human corpse in my bedroom, or maybe like the septic tank had backed up, emptying its entire contents into one room. I searched and found the fuzzy, and was very disappointed.

After that I think I tried a toad-guts-scented fuzzy, which did not work, (a toad that died- I didn't kill it for that) and then I decided, that's it, she's lost as much weight as I'm willing to accept, I'll try assist-feeding her. Which was sort of a cluster the first time I tried, but I got the pink down, and the next times were much easier, and I've been sticking to a five day schedule, and she's been gaining a gram here, a gram there. Finally last week I went to two pinks, and she now weighs more than when I caught her. On a good day, I press a pink up against her snout, she opens her mouth, I pop it in, and she swallows as I massage her throat. On a bad day, I get her to open her mouth by pressing the side with a chopstick, and we procede from there, with much writhing and musking. Even on a "bad" day the whole procedure takes only two minutes or less.

A couple days ago she crawled willingly into my hand for the first time- so I am reassured that she doesn't "hate" me for the sometimes unpleasantness of being assist-fed. At all other times, she is sweet and gentle and shy. Did you see her video in General Chit Chat, Addy The Cobra?

So anyway, thanks for the feeding tongs suggestion. She is, unfortunately, the biggest chicken in the universe. When I put a live tiny frog in with her, she didn't even notice it, and then as she'd accidentally get close, the frog would boing over to the other side of the feeding container, and Addy would recoil in horror, hissing and spreading her hood. Eventually the frog learned it had nothing to fear, and wouldn't even move if she touched it.

So I don't know when I'm going to try to feed her on her own again- but she's going to be at a nice safe weight. Maybe in the spring.

Nanci

To be honest I think that assist-feeding a wc that apparently did fine in the wild, is a step too far. I would have released it. I would not be able to honestly say the snake lives a more comfortable live in captivity with the stress of feeding then in the wild. But I agree she is a cutie!

Well, that's your opinion! Even captive-bred hoggies can be notoriously difficult to get started feeding on mice. This was a snake that was displaced by an electric utility crew at a time of year that her natural prey was brumating for the winter, as she should have been, so releasing her in another area really wasn't an option. I didn't go grabbing her out of the wild, and wouldn't have- already knowing that feeding would be difficult.

Nanci