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Buy frozen or alive

Also how big is the tank you put him in to eat?
Generally you want something very tight, like the deli cup he came in, to feed. That way they don't get distracted.
 
If this still doesn't make him want to eat, you can "brain" the mouse, sort of poke or cut its head open a little to let the juices out. This will entice his appetite if he is ready to eat. If he doesn't eat within 6 hours or so, let it go for a few days. If he is blue (getting ready to shed) he won't want to eat, and if you just got him recently he may not be totally settled in.

Daddio also gave great advice with the song. Using tongs or your fingers (depending on how brave you are) wiggle the mouse by its tail in front of the snake. He will think it is alive and "doing a little dance"! Patience is key.
 
smigon said:
you can "brain" the mouse, sort of poke or cut its head open a little to let the juices out. This will entice his appetite if he is ready to eat. If he doesn't eat within 6 hours or so
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I disagree with leaving a brained mouse with a snake for anything longer than half an hour. I don't know why people always give this advice. When I left a brained pinkie inside a deli cup with a snake for a few hours, I came back from work to an awful stench, and I had to wash the snake to get it off him.
In my experience with my new baby corn, if he doesn't eat what's offered within a few minutes after I leave the room and turn the light off -- then he's not gonna eat tonight, period.

As far as the live vs F/T argument, live feeding creates way too many variables that aren't worth the trouble. The snake won't always succeed in killing prey and that leaves you with a live rodent to deal with.
Feeding has to be very consistent and always done the same way to ensure that the snake will eat... they seem most comfortable with a very predictable routine.

My previous snake got sick after too much live feeding and I had to return him to the pet store. It took losing my snake to learn that.

Now I have a new baby and I only feed him F/T. I want a healthy, fit snake and not a damaged one.
 
7legion77 said:
My previous snake got sick after too much live feeding and I had to return him to the pet store. It took losing my snake to learn that.
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I'm curious, what do you mean your snake got sick from too much live feeding? (Out of curiosity, of course, as I am a firm supporter of F/T.) Was it injuries or something like parasites?
 
7legion77 said:
I disagree with leaving a brained mouse with a snake for anything longer than half an hour. I don't know why people always give this advice. When I left a brained pinkie inside a deli cup with a snake for a few hours, I came back from work to an awful stench, and I had to wash the snake to get it off him.
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Hunh. I have never had a pinky start smelling even when leaving it overnight, not even the ones I've cut in half.

In my experience with my new baby corn, if he doesn't eat what's offered within a few minutes after I leave the room and turn the light off -- then he's not gonna eat tonight, period.
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I have some that won't eat unless the pink has been in there for hours. That's how I got my one remaining live feeder to finally take F/T; the pink was there for almost an entire day as I had put it in the previous evening and had to leave for work real early in the morning.

My previous snake got sick after too much live feeding and I had to return him to the pet store. It took losing my snake to learn that.
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Sick how?
 
7legion77 said:
In my experience with my new baby corn, if he doesn't eat what's offered within a few minutes after I leave the room and turn the light off -- then he's not gonna eat tonight, period.
.
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My experience is very different. I would have lots of non feeders if that was the way it worked for me! I usually leave pinks in overnight and they will eat them late late night or even early morning. My hog nose used to like them to sit in there for almost a whole day before he'd eat.

I also disagree that feeding needs to be routine and consistent. It might be good for babies, but my adults don't care if they're being fed in their cage, on the floor, while being held (don't ask lol), in front of an audience, etc.
 
[QUOTE= I came back from work to an awful stench, and I had to wash the snake to get it off him.

Do you just use water to give your snake baths? HOw did you wash? and do ppl normally wash their snakes??
 
You really shouldn't ever have to wash a snake. Sometimes if one is deli'd with something overnight and crawls through scented pink & juice 200 times (hardly ever happens with corns, though), I'll rub it down with a damp paper towel. Be sure and don't put the deli right on top of the heat pad, which besides speeding up decomposition, might get uncomfortably warm for the snake. I am a firm believer in leaving them overnight with their thawed food.
 
I am not sure what caused his neurological disorder! I just know that in the future I'll avoid putting the snake anywhere that is possibly unclean/handle attentively/stick to clean F/T feedings/keep him from ingesting aspen substrate.

The biggest thing I learned was to make sure to monitor my new snake's weight and make sure to feed him just enough because they seem to grow at wildly different rates... and each snake should have a custom-tailored feeding schedule according to his growth rate and weight. I'm going relatively easy with the feedings because its so easy for a beginner to overfeed.

I'm sure if you're a breeder or you've raised many babies you have more experience than I.
I guess I got lucky with my new one because he usually quickly eats whatever is offered. The one meal he refused was a live pinky.
By consistent I meant that it might confuse the snake if you switch between F/T, F/K, and live (another thing I did with the previous one) and that might cause them not to eat.
I still don't like the idea of leaving a dead creature in with the snake for that many hours. What if your snake ends up eating a spoiled meal?
 
It won't be spoiled overnight, and if they did eat a "ripe" one, they'd be fine. If it's too rotten, they won't eat. Though I've fed getula kings some pretty dank mice.
 
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