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Weaning babies off of boiled pinks

5 Star Serpents

5 Star Serpents

Ryan and Terri
So after a lot of thought and a conversation with a very reputable breeder I decided to try my non feeders on boiled pinks this season rather than the dreaded force feeding, splitting, etc, and had 100% success with it. Now each baby that is feeding on boiled has had 3 meals of boiled, one took her first f/t tonight, to say I was thrilled would be an understatement really. Now my question is what is the best method to getting them off boiled onto plain f/t, even live I'm fine with honestly as we breed our own feeders but I prefer f/t as I will NOT sell live feeders so they are with me until they regularly take f/t. I normally bring the water to a rolling boil, remove it from the heat, drop pinks for about 45 seconds remove, dry, cool and feed, it has worked awesomely as I mentioned. Tonight I dropped them for about 15 seconds each, if that to get them less cooked if you will, I haven't checked yet but by the time I left about 1/2 of them had taken it the other half had not, I leave them overnight so I will know in the a.m. who did and didn't eat. By doing this is it likely going to help get them eating f/t? Does anyone have any thoughts on this or ideas, or previous successful experience they could share? TIA!
 
When I have fed boiled, fed them right out of the boiling water. Then, after a couple meals of boiled, I just thawed like I normally do, in regular super-hot tap water. They all weaned off of boiled very easily.

Boiled pinks are like a miracle for non-feeders- so many people had great success with them this season, once the word got out. I had known about boiled, previously, but didn't realize that boiled didn't mean 'very hot," it meant cooked! That makes all the difference.
 
Very interesting and new feeding technique to me. I'm sure this applies to all snakes? Might help me in the future. ;)
-Skully-
 
Skully23 said:
Very interesting and new feeding technique to me. I'm sure this applies to all snakes? Might help me in the future. ;)
-Skully-
Click to expand...

I've got two threads from 2012 about difficult feeders- OMG Three Babies Ate! and Diary of a Non-Feeder. I learned some interesting things this year.
 
Nanci said:
I've got two threads from 2012 about difficult feeders- OMG Three Babies Ate! and Diary of a Non-Feeder. I learned some interesting things this year.
Click to expand...

It was the "Diary of a Non-Feeder" that I read that really made me think about trying it much to my disgust LOL, but then after talking to Steve Roylance and him telling me that as gross as it is that yes it does actually work, I thought I'd give it a shot. I'm very glad I did and won't mess with all the other random techniques from now on.
I thaw all my feeders at room temp, pinks only take about half an hour and I don't really have anyone that feels they need hot babies, but maybe I will try it after one more boiled feeding just for those babies and see if that works. I let my boiled cool too, so it's gotta be the change in the smell of them not so much the heat in that case.
***all of the babies on boiled did eat their barely boiled feeders last night...in fact all 45 babies that I fed last night ate :dancer:
 
The other important thing I learned was about soap scenting. It hadn't worked for me in past years to wash the pink with a tiny amount of dish soap and rinse thoroughly. This year, I washed with 50% dish soap, 50% very hot water, and a drizzle of boiling water, and then BARELY rinsed the pinks before offering them. I also learned that if a snake doesn't like Dawn, it might like Ivory, or Joy, or Dial. And if a snake didn't take Ivory washed, it might change its mind at a later date, so offer again.
 
I tried the soap once...I know it's bad but I gave up after that one time, I will try that ratio of soap:water maybe next year. I found the boiled so successful and really quite easy so I figured I would stick with it since it works :)

So when you wash them do you mix the water and soap stick them in give them a scrub then the quick rinse then toss em in? I'm just curious of the fine details because sometimes that's the key.
 
I filled a 1/4 metal measuring cup 1/3 full of Ivory original dish soap. I added an equal amount of hottest tap water- 125F. I added frozen pinks. I topped it off with maybe a tablespoon of boiling water. Let it sit. Rinsed by running hottest tap water into the cup, till they were about half rinsed. Picked pinks out with a forceps.
 
Nanci said:
When I have fed boiled, fed them right out of the boiling water. Then, after a couple meals of boiled, I just thawed like I normally do, in regular super-hot tap water. They all weaned off of boiled very easily.
Click to expand...

What she said! I feed boiled, super hot, then regular...usually about 2 of each. Easy peasy...
 
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