Say a little prayer...

phenyx · 07-30-18, 06:32 PM

Ok, so it's now 20 days post regurg #4 and, on the advice of Dave C from Rainbows R Us as well as some folks here, I've offered Jerkface a rat pink dusted with NutriBACdf. I'm really really unsure about this though. It's an 8 gram rat pink and that's bigger than any mouse fuzzy he's taken previously. It looks to be appropriately sized though, roughly the same as his girth.

At the moment, he and the fresh-killed (I really hate having to murder pinkies myself but no one around here sells frozen ones and Jerkface doesn't have the feeding response to kill live ones), lightly dusted rat pink are in his rubbermaid feeding container (yes I still put him in a feeding container to maximize the chances that he'll actually eat. If I put the pinky in his viv, he'd never find it. If he ever begins feeding regularly and reliably, then I'll transition him to feeding in his viv.) and he's just not interested in it at all. He's not even tongue flicking. It's like it just doesn't register as food.

Is it possible that he's visually blind? I'm not even sure he can see it thermally. It couldn't have cooled that much. I killed it right before I dusted it and put it in with him directly but he's just crawling over it like it isn't even there.

It's a good thing I also have Nagini the Eating Machine. If Jerkface were my first and only snake I'd probably give up on herps altogether.

**EL Ziggy** · 07-30-18, 09:32 PM

I'm sorry he's been such a difficult critter phenyx. I pray he comes around SOON.

riddick07 · 07-31-18, 02:41 PM

Brain it if you haven’t already. I stab them with a knife tip on the top of the head and usually the smell will get them going.

phenyx · 08-01-18, 07:34 PM

I forgot all about about braining. I ended up freezing the rat pink for later use (I still think it may have been just too big for him - 8 gms is about 25% of his current body weight) and offered him a tiny 3 gm mouse pink (also dusted with NutriBACdf) that he did eat. It's been 2 days and it hasn't come back up yet so...fingers crossed. I'm going to wait 2 weeks before I offer him another hairless meal.

Scubadiver59 · 08-02-18, 05:42 AM

If the prey is too large, split it down the middle while frozen, thaw, warm, and then feed. It can get a little messy, but not so much so with pinks.

I had to do this with my CA Red Side Garter since she was so small and I wanted to get her off of worms (night crawler pieces).

Quote:

Originally Posted by phenyx

I forgot all about about braining. I ended up freezing the rat pink for later use (I still think it may have been just too big for him - 8 gms is about 25% of his current body weight) and offered him a tiny 3 gm mouse pink (also dusted with NutriBACdf) that he did eat. It's been 2 days and it hasn't come back up yet so...fingers crossed. I'm going to wait 2 weeks before I offer him another hairless meal.

bigsnakegirl785 · 08-02-18, 08:26 AM

Sounds like it's definitely too large. With the NutriBAC, I liked to lightly dust the prey by taking it out of water and rolling it across paper towels. That way it's damp enough to pick up the NutriBAC without getting tacky. Then, if Morzan was particularly uninterested, I'd dip the head in the hot water I used to thaw it in, and that usually did the trick.

If you can find any smaller rat pinks, you can try to work him over to rats, but I've always been nervous myself to feed rat pinks to babies that small (with regurge problems already) as well.