First successful assist feed

Well, from my first clutch, 7 eggs, I have 6 strong feeders and one straggler that was starting to get too thin for my liking. After 8 or so weeks of refusing live and f/t mice, and his clutch-mates gaining weight like crazy, I decided it was time to take matters into my own hands (literally)

This is the first time I'd ever attempted this, so I cracked open Pythons of the World, Vol 2, went to the index, and looked up "Assist Feeding"...found it in the book, and spent the 5 minutes reading over their simple instructions.

I was nervous as heck, and they said it should be a fast process to reduce the stress on the snake. Unfortunately, since it was my first time and i was a little nervous, it took me a little longer than a minute to finally open his mouth and clamp down on the mouse.

I was actually expecting him to spit it out and make me struggle again, but to my surprise, he actually coiled around it, and after about 3 minutes, started consuming it.

If I had another set of hands to take pictures of that process, I woulda....but I only got picture of after I set him down to let him finish his meal :oops:

http://www.nathanledet.com/assistfeed/1.jpg
http://www.nathanledet.com/assistfeed/2.jpg
http://www.nathanledet.com/assistfeed/3.jpg
http://www.nathanledet.com/assistfeed/4.jpg

Reading the Barkers book helped ease my mind. It talks about how there's always a snake from time to time that just doesn't quite know what to do...doesn't really know how to eat, and you just need to help him along for that first time. I'm hoping now that he has eaten, he will finally realize what i'm dangling in front of his face and will take it without hesitation.

Thanks for looking :gj:

Aww, that's good to hear Nate. :)

:clap: congratulations, Nate! I'da been super nervous, too... :oops:

Congrats on the success and kudos for the nerve to try it. That little one just may turn out to be a most aggressive feeder! :gj:

Good for you! I can only imagine all the stuff going through your mind when you assist feed for the first time. :gj:

Good for you Nate, sometimes you do have to help some of them get started. We learned to assist feed last year on some CH hatchlings and I can tell you those ladies, that once couldn't seem to figure out how to eat, are as big and healthy as could be and have wonderful feeding responses.

This year out of our 18 hatchlings we've had to assist a few of them but again, once they figured out that "thing" was indeed pretty yummy to eat, they never looked back. Some do need a few assists to get that concept going but eventually they all get it.

It's nerve wracking at first though and still something I hate to have to resort to and don't until it's obvious that hatchling is not going to get started on it's own and is falling far behind it's clutchmates.

good job!

Congrats Nate! With that kind of response to assist feeding, hopefully he'll catch the mouse himself next time.

Congrats nate.

It IS nerve-racking.

One thing I find helps, I dip the prey's head in the water dish and then just nudge the snake's mouth with it. That extra bit of lubrication seems to help.

Looks like you got a nice strong coil from him once he got the prey in, thats good to see.

Here's hoping he'll pick up the slack from now on. :)

Bruce

Well done sir.
I hate having to assist feed, my first few Candoia needed it, unfortunately they were the first snakes I got when I got back into snakes since I was young. It was harrowing.

I hope all this little one needed was a kick start.

congrats on the succesful assist feed. yea sometimes babies just dont understand that they need to eat to live. lol, i usually have 1 thatll be like that. they just dont seem to understand or get the concept and you have to help them out the first few times. they usually turn out to be one of the most aggessive feeders. i had one baby female spider that i had to assist for 4 months.:mad: but now you better watch your hand when you open that tub cuz 9 times out of 10 she'll tag you in the process of going for the rat.

congratz nice to know the lil guy is eating:weirdface

Rock on Nate! Job well done:gj:
Bet you feel alot better now, i know I do when they finally gobble those little suckers up.

:D Thanks a lot for the kind responses everyone.

Yeah, I feel much better now...but i'll feel even better if he eats on his own this weekend without struggle.

Thanks again everyone :gj:

Thank you for sharing those pictures, it confirms to me that I am offering my baby ball a mouse that is way too large.

Congrats Nate. It's always a harrowing experience the first time. Now your seasones, and won't think twice next time you have a hatchling that needs a little TLC. Out of about 200 babies so far this year, I think I have only had to assist about 8. Most of them will take the second meal on thir own, but a couple will require more A/F. I had one last year that required 5 assissts before going on his own. This year the most I have had to do so far is 3. Good luck with that guy, and I hope his next feeding is unassisted. Lastly, it is up to you, but I typically give my assisst fed animals 10 days off, without introducing food, to ensure that they have gotten over the stress of being fed.

We had one last year, a CH female that just would not go on her own. We did assists, we gave her extra days to settle down after an assist, we kept occasionally trying her on live prey....nada. I really started to wonder if we were never going to get this little snake to figure out that warm thing was food!

Then one day, I have no idea why, she just got it! I popped in a small live prey item figuring it was pointless as always but hey gotta give the snake a chance here. She nailed it immediately like she'd been doing this all by herself straight out of the egg! I literally had to check the ID on her tub to make sure this was our little won't eat by herself for anything hatchling LOL.

These days as a yearling she's one of the most fierce eaters and will just about stand up on her tail and hop out of the tub if you don't get her meal in there fast enough. Who would have thought this little snake ever didn't know how to hunt for herself. :rolleyes:

Nate, congrats on your successful first attempt at assist feeding. I hope that little one gets the idea now and you don't need to do it again!

Also thanks for sharing your experience with it. And thanks to everyone else who posted their experiences in this thread. Now that we are getting very serious about breeding, I am just devouring stuff like this trying to file it away in some corner of my brain where it will hopefully pop out when I need it. I think (hope!) it will make me much less nervous when we are attempting to produce & raise our own babies!

The nice thing, Casey, is these thread will always be here to find again when you need to refer back to them using our Search or Advanced Search engines.

Also if a thread is something that really strikes you as a topic you know you'll want to refer back to time and time again, you can always add it to your BPNet personal favorites list. Just click on the link on every post/thread at the top left that says "Add Post to Favorites" and you're all set. Check your User CP and your favorites are all right there listed for you so you can easily find them again. :)