HomeBreeder
Herphilious Lunacious
If anyone has anything to contrtibute to this, by all means do!
I had a little previous experience with problem feeders. One had eaten 2 or 3 meals, then just decided to stop eating. I had to use a pinkie-pump to force-feed him for a couple months. After reading similar accounts, I consider myself VERY lucky that he's eaten 3 f/t meals all on his own now! Apparently some people, once resorting to force-feeding, have to keep it up for months and months. In my case it seems I got lucky.
So when I saw an ad for eight neonates that were problem feeders I bit the bullet. Mind you, this wasn't too long ago, and so this story is still unfolding, but 2 very specific things seem to have worked very well for me.
1 - The brown bag trick (in tandem with "lizard-maker")
Some of the neonates were more than 3 weeks old when I got them, and most or all had never eaten. I've had exceellent luck in the past feeding herps the day I get them - I don't know what it is, but they just seem to relax and settle right in for me - so I decided not to waste any time and I pulled out my first double-punch for these guys. Required equipment: brown paper lunch bag(s), clip(s), pinkie(s), and lizard maker. Toss one slightly warm thawed pinkie into a lunch bag after diping it's nose in lizard maker. Add problem feeder. Clip bag closed, and set in a warm and quiet place.
Within 2 hours 4 of the 8 had eaten. The other 4 refused this offering for more than 6 hours and were placed into their small (~1 pint) apartments.
I will probably be giving these 4 their second meal tomorrow. Hopefully it will go as well as, or better than the first feeding. I have no reason to suspect otherwise yet.
2 - the live food trick
The remaining 4 were offered brained f/t pinkies (again, in brown bags, with lizard maker added too) a few days later and all 4 disdained this offering, as well as chopped anole. I was afraid I'd need to warm up the olde pinkie pump, or get some meat baby food and try a slightly less traumatic plastic syringe. Although I've learned a bit about force-feeding in the past I don't look forward to having to resort to it.
As luck would have it, my "negligent mother" mouse gave birth to 4 pinkies last night. There were probably more, and frankly I don't want to know what she did with them. The timing gave me an idea though - maybe some live food would get their feeding instinct to kick in.
Did it ever. One of them was swallowing his pinkie before I'd given each their own. Within 30 minutes each of the 4 had a nice big bulge in his tummy! By no means is this proof that my turmoils are over, but if you've ever force-fed you'll completely understand why I'm so happy about this
3 - more advice
Advice I got from an other breeder: don't offer food more than once every 4-5 days. Offer too often, and you can probably build up a negative Pavlovian responce or something?
4 - yearlings
Oddly, a couple of my yearlings are somewhat picky eaters. I'm finding that a little wiggle at the end of some feeding tongs is usually all they are looking for, however. They might like the thrill or the excersize involved in capturing and constrricting their food? I hope they grow out of it
^Curtis
I had a little previous experience with problem feeders. One had eaten 2 or 3 meals, then just decided to stop eating. I had to use a pinkie-pump to force-feed him for a couple months. After reading similar accounts, I consider myself VERY lucky that he's eaten 3 f/t meals all on his own now! Apparently some people, once resorting to force-feeding, have to keep it up for months and months. In my case it seems I got lucky.
So when I saw an ad for eight neonates that were problem feeders I bit the bullet. Mind you, this wasn't too long ago, and so this story is still unfolding, but 2 very specific things seem to have worked very well for me.
1 - The brown bag trick (in tandem with "lizard-maker")
Some of the neonates were more than 3 weeks old when I got them, and most or all had never eaten. I've had exceellent luck in the past feeding herps the day I get them - I don't know what it is, but they just seem to relax and settle right in for me - so I decided not to waste any time and I pulled out my first double-punch for these guys. Required equipment: brown paper lunch bag(s), clip(s), pinkie(s), and lizard maker. Toss one slightly warm thawed pinkie into a lunch bag after diping it's nose in lizard maker. Add problem feeder. Clip bag closed, and set in a warm and quiet place.
Within 2 hours 4 of the 8 had eaten. The other 4 refused this offering for more than 6 hours and were placed into their small (~1 pint) apartments.
I will probably be giving these 4 their second meal tomorrow. Hopefully it will go as well as, or better than the first feeding. I have no reason to suspect otherwise yet.
2 - the live food trick
The remaining 4 were offered brained f/t pinkies (again, in brown bags, with lizard maker added too) a few days later and all 4 disdained this offering, as well as chopped anole. I was afraid I'd need to warm up the olde pinkie pump, or get some meat baby food and try a slightly less traumatic plastic syringe. Although I've learned a bit about force-feeding in the past I don't look forward to having to resort to it.
As luck would have it, my "negligent mother" mouse gave birth to 4 pinkies last night. There were probably more, and frankly I don't want to know what she did with them. The timing gave me an idea though - maybe some live food would get their feeding instinct to kick in.
Did it ever. One of them was swallowing his pinkie before I'd given each their own. Within 30 minutes each of the 4 had a nice big bulge in his tummy! By no means is this proof that my turmoils are over, but if you've ever force-fed you'll completely understand why I'm so happy about this
3 - more advice
Advice I got from an other breeder: don't offer food more than once every 4-5 days. Offer too often, and you can probably build up a negative Pavlovian responce or something?
4 - yearlings
Oddly, a couple of my yearlings are somewhat picky eaters. I'm finding that a little wiggle at the end of some feeding tongs is usually all they are looking for, however. They might like the thrill or the excersize involved in capturing and constrricting their food? I hope they grow out of it
^Curtis