Assist Feeding Hatchlings - When will they ever eat?

You haven't got anything to worry about if he's taking pinkies every week. Snakes can go a lot longer without food than you think.

I'm currently assist feeding one of my gaboon vipers. He is only being fed one pinkie every 3-4 weeks.

You should be able to push a bigger food item all the way down, so he cannot spit it back out.

I would try a nice fat live fuzzy mouse left in his cage overnight.

what size enclosure is he in? how much does he weighs?

I tried another hopper, then I put a rat pinkie in. I'm going to wait and see if he eats the rat. Anyone know how to raise a live rat pinkie if he doesn't eat it, haha? It's a bit too cute to kill. Twenty eight quarts like all the tubs on my small rack, and he's 35 grams. Here is a size comparison to my albino male that was hatched a week later than this yellow belly.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/12/11/09/yjy9edam.jpg

28 quart tub is way too big for hatchlings. even the ones that will eat for you in a 28 qt tub will most likely do better in some thing a lot smaller. if you can, you need to get him in a 6 qt tub. they sell them at walmart for around a dollar. sterilite. I don't know if you can remove his 28 qt tub and put the 6 qt in the rack with just part of the tub over the heat. you might have to keep the lid on, so don't forget air holes. keep a close eye on the temps, being your rack isn't made for the 6 qt tub. 35 grams is small, and assist feed him a desent size pinky mouse like you been doing. but he needs to be feed at least twice a week. watch his weight. once it goes up a little more and he still won't eat by himself. feed him 6 times every other day. wait 10 to 14 days and try feeding him a live fuzzy mouse, sneaking it into his tub and letting him be. he also needs to be left alone all the time you are doing all of this. feeding him like this will put some food into him, stressing him yes. the 10 to 14 day wait will help him calm back down and give him a chance to feel the need to eat again.
I had twins this year and the one was only 23 grams. he needed assist feeding and he's doing great now and never misses a meal. good luck, if you have any questions for me, you can pm me and I'll answer as quickly as possible. don

Thanks, but he's been in a 6 qt since I've been having issues after the first assist feed. I made a mistake in saying he was in a 28 like most of my corns. I have packs of the 6qts from the local store since they're 5 for 5. I use them for quarantine for all my herps. I'm not worried about temps, I don't have custom snake rack. I use temp probes for individual tubs.

Update. After speaking to my mentor I was able to get a pinkie rat sticky enough after a couple tries to get it in. He downed it, and it is his second feeding in the week. I think I've got it settled now that he's taking larger f/t or p/k items. I'll just keep assisting until he takes on his own. He wouldn't take a live pinkie rat overnight so I killed it and assisted him.

I think he'll be fine now.

He had multiple pinkie meals, then a rat pinkie, and finally this week I was able to assist him in eating a mouse hopper. However, it has been a week since I fed him that last meal and he has died.

I'm not sure if I was too late, or something was just never right with him. He was always missing teeth on the left side of his jaw. Either way, I found him dead this morning and it was an unpleasant surprise. I thought that he was finally making it. Very disappointing. His sibling, a female normal hatchling that was having feeding issues as well, is doing just fine and taking food on her own now. At least there was one success.

Sorry for your loss!

Sometimes even with our best intentions and help pets don't make it. Out of curiosity was he the runt of his fellow clutch mates?

Oh yes. He was smaller even than his female clutch-mate female. At a few months old and with a few pinkies in him, he was at 35 grams while the female was at 40. The other clutch-mates I saw were larger. These two were the runts I would expect to die in the wild. He probably just wasn't meant to make it, genetically speaking. I know the feeling well from breeding other animals - some just don't make it, no matter how hard we try. A sad loss, but I'm not going to beat myself up for it!