neonate feeding tricks

[zouleous]

So far my baby Hogg isn't yet. I'd like everyone to spill their secrets (methods) of getting baby snakes to eat. He just doesn't seem interested in eating at all. He was born August 7th and hasn't had his first meal. Thanks!

Z

[JDouglas]

When I first got my Hog it wouldn't eat but now it is a pig. LOL

First, make sure your cage set up is good. The ambient temp should be 82F and the hot spot at least 95F. Try to get the humidity between 50% and 80%. Give the boa some good hides and clean water. My Hog didn't eat until I added some climbing branches, and she then spent all her time in the branches and ate from them.

Don't try feeding it everyday. Give it a few days between each try so you don't stress it out.

Feed at night in the dark and try to disturb the boa as little as possible. Try offering different types of food items(dead, live, mice, rats) Make sure when you are feeding thawed/frozen they are really hot when you offer them to the boa and always use hemostats so the boa will not focus on you or your hand.

If the boa seems thin offer a small food item for the first few meals to get its digestive system going, and then switch to bigger items. Although some boas do respond better to larger food items?

I hope this helps,
Good Luck!

[BigDan]

A little trick I learned is you get a brown paper lunch bag put the snake in it with a warmed up frozen thawed mouse/rat of appropriate size. Roll up the bag like you would if you had your lunch in it. Poke a hole or two in it if you are worried. Put it back in the snakes enclosure come back about an hour or two later and bam 9 times out of ten the food item is gone.

The dark bag and the close proximty of the food item plus the smell is intesified in the smaller space seems to work like a charm. I have been able to get many of my neonate boas to start eating frozen thawed this way without having to offer any live prey items at all.

Dan

[djc3674]

yes..my baby hog loves to climb...the breeder I got him from was having problems getting the whole clutch to eat...i waited over a month for him to ship the snake to me. Finally..i just asked him to ship the snake to me and I will work with it. So he shipped it even though it wasnt eating.....

After having the snake 3 days..he ate a small fuzzy mouse (live).
He is now taking down 2 adult mice at every feed time. I have had him since the end of June.
Are you feeding f/t..p/k or live?? I think when they are babies..they need the live movement to start a feed response...i know ppl dont like to feed live..but it works well when they are babies and the small fuzzy isnt going to hurt your snake...how long have you had it...it may need to settle in first..dont worry..it will eat.

BTW..i just took some feeding pics of my baby hog and my ball python...once I get them on CD..I will be posting them.

[HetForHuman]

i just got my baby hog to eat last night for the first time.

what i did was try to feed it to her with tongs, when i got the mouse close to her she struck at it then let go of the mouse and hissed at me like crazy. so i just put the lid back on and left the mouse in there overnight.

i woke up this morning and the mouse was gone.

so maybe give that a shot too, worked for me.

[Invictus]

Something that we do with the problem feeders that seems to work is, we put them in a feed bucket with the mouse, and put them in a dark closet. In one particular case (our adult male Kenyan), sometimes just putting him in the feed bucket doesn't cut it. He has to be in the dark. Maybe it's because it forces them to use their sense of smell or something. I don't know. But it's one more technique you can add to the list

braining, unsalted chicken broth dip, scenting with bird, lizard, or frog, different sized prey (usually larger, most of my crotalus neonates don't recognize anything smaller than hoppers as prey). just a few other options.

[zouleous]

Hoggs babies are pretty small. Seems to me a hopper would be a little on the large side for him. I would hate to get him to eat and then have in regurgitate it. Keep the ideas coming =)

Really appreciate the replies =)

Z

[zouleous]

WOOHOO he ate! There was much singing and dancing!

The trick that finally got him eating was last night I put him in a small box (I think a network card box) that wasn't very tall so he's want to crawl up the side of the box and ignore the food item. I put in a f/t mouse fuzzy and closed it up...btw it was set inside his enclosure so temps would stay right and he wouldn't escape if he found a way out of the box. Morning came and walah! He's sittin in the box alone fat belly and all with a look like "what did I do"?

Thanks to everyone who posted =)

Z

[sapphire_moon]

Congrats!!!!!