Unexpected babies...couple of questions

[Sunnieskys]

I just read through this entire thread. What do you do when/if your animals don’t eat F/T I feed live like She is doing. This isn't my animal btw.
Just let them suffer? Nope...feeding live.
I just can’t wrap my head around people who can’t feed a snake live and will, like Deborah said, force the snake to suffer stuffing a FT rat in their face every 3 days. Which is why I asked. Never had babies...didn't expect babies.

The snake doesn’t know any better. It’s not their fault. Please don’t put a male and a female together again in my opinion. This was done "before" my friend even got the snake from a previous owner who thought they were both girls. The only reason we now know Dora is a boy is from the surprise clutch.

No more “surprise” clutches hopefully.

so if you read the entire thread you would have known most of this. But thanks for jumping on me like I. A terrible snake owner. I know nothing about babies and came here to get advice and you made me feel like the stupidest person on the planet. So thanks for that.

Umm couple of things... I will put my responses in blue in your quote.

[rufretic]

so if you read the entire thread you would have known most of this. But thanks for jumping on me like I. A terrible snake owner. I know nothing about babies and came here to get advice and you made me feel like the stupidest person on the planet. So thanks for that.

Umm couple of things... I will put my responses in blue in your quote.

Don't let anyone get to you, people tend to come down on people pretty hard here for making mistakes but I think they just have the animals best interest at heart and nobody here likes seeing animals suffer. But everyone makes mistakes, the important thing is to learn from them. Don't let the way people deliver good advice get you down, for the most part I think everyone here is just trying to help, they are just a little harsh with the delivery haha.

[DandD]

Don't let anyone get to you, people tend to come down on people pretty hard here for making mistakes but I think they just have the animals best interest at heart and nobody here likes seeing animals suffer. But everyone makes mistakes, the important thing is to learn from them. Don't let the way people deliver good advice get you down, for the most part I think everyone here is just trying to help, they are just a little harsh with the delivery haha.

I agree with rufretic here. On this forum I’ve seen a lot of new people beat up on by the elitists of the hobby. I get that everyone has the animals best interest in mind, but the way they go about it turns new people away. In turn those new people will continue to do things the wrong way because they are afraid to ask questions.

[Sunnieskys]

Ok so another update. I'm getting worried about two of them.

The he two that ate last week ate again this week. Yah!

the two that did not eat...they didn't eat again. They didn't have live fuzzies (they were sold out)so she got the smallest hoppers they had. offered and nothing. I'm worried about them. Now what? I'm at a loss...how much longer do I give them? Ugh....

[Alicia]

Ok so another update. I'm getting worried about two of them.

The he two that ate last week ate again this week. Yah!

the two that did not eat...they didn't eat again. They didn't have live fuzzies (they were sold out)so she got the smallest hoppers they had. offered and nothing. I'm worried about them. Now what? I'm at a loss...how much longer do I give them? Ugh....

Don't consider assist feeding yet. Panic is natural, but it's not your friend. If your rodent supplier gets fuzzies a day or two before the week is up, snag them. Otherwise, unless you have to change a cage, leave these two non-feeders alone as much as possible. Right now, for non-feeders, all nonessential contact only causes stress. We want to minimize that.

Real quick though, a couple questions I haven't found answers to in the thread -
What are the babies housed in? Are they in tanks? Tubs? What size?

Are they still on paper towels? Aspen or cypress (cypress is awesome for humidity) creates a more secure feeling than paper.

Are you still misting daily?

Assist feeding an otherwise healthy baby is the absolute last resort. Some babies stress easier and need more attention to detail on their setups than others. A lot of the time, figuring out what they need to feel secure, as well as providing appropriate prey, is all it takes. Hopefully, someone else will chime in with more ideas.

[Bogertophis]

Ok so another update. I'm getting worried about two of them.

The he two that ate last week ate again this week. Yah!

the two that did not eat...they didn't eat again. They didn't have live fuzzies (they were sold out)so she got the smallest hoppers they had. offered and nothing. I'm worried about them. Now what? I'm at a loss...how much longer do I give them? Ugh....

How much longer do you give them until what? Gotta keep trying. Could also try rat pinks or small rat fuzzies, if available (live). Some BPs can be pretty frustrating.

[Sunnieskys]

How much longer do you give them until what? Gotta keep trying. Could also try rat pinks or small rat fuzzies, if available (live). Some BPs can be pretty frustrating.

give them before I assist feed. It is frustrating. I won't give up.

[Sunnieskys]

Update again: the two are still not eating. We went down to live fuzzies. No interest. They are in the shoe boxes like debs tutorial. Im at a loss! They will not eat. What do i do! Lucy is at 50g now and bonzo is at 52g. They have lost 10g since hatched. Im panicking!

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[Gemini Pythons]

Also we are not feeding live. We are doing F/T. We dont want to do live unless absolutely last resort/necessary. I will also drop thw uth by 2 degrees. Also someone asked when they shed. They all shed out 6 days ago. Two of them 8 days ago.

We have a very hard time getting live where we live (city bylaws don't let pet shops sell feeders, we aren't able to breed our own, and closest city that sells them is almost 3 hours away), so we also try to start our babies on F/T as well. That being said, on top of some of the other great suggestions here (like feeding at night and in the dark) we do the following because it IS much harder to get them started on F/T:

- Weigh each baby on a kitchen scale asap and weigh them every two weeks. Once they get near losing 10% of their body weight, we begin offering live.

- The biggest challenge is that the small prey sizes cool very quickly. Keep this in mind when offering (don't wave the F/T around in front of them too long). I recommend defrosting a couple mice because it is faster than only having one that you constantly need to reheat. We keep the defrosted ones we are offering in a ziplock floating in hot water. We always have one ready to go!

- Go by body language. If you see tongue flicks and interest, persist (again, keep in mind they cool fast. So if you see interest, be sure to swap mice if the one you are offering is in danger of getting too cool). If they turn away and try to get away from the F/T, stop immediately.

- Keep good records of their behaviour as well as weight. If they seem interested, shy away, defensive strike, etc.

- We have had to assist feed twice in the past 6 years. In both cases, they had lost 10% of their body weight and had refused two to three live meals. Don't assist feed unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. If they only recently hatched, you're fine. Keep in mind they absorb their yokes before hatching. We find that it takes the average baby one month to one and half months to accept F/T.

edit: And now i see this was an older thread and i'm replying to old news! D'oh.

[Sunnieskys]

No thank you. I need help. It isn't an old thread. I may have to start a new one since no one is responding.