death after assist feeding?

[SilentHill]

anyone ever experienced this before? or even heard of it? young BP. only had her maybe 2 weeks.

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[Lord Sorril]

I will always offer live food regularly before even considering assist/force feeding.

I have assist/force fed many ball pythons and I have not experienced a death afterward. I imagine it would be logical to expect a death if there is an undetected medical condition that is inhibiting the snake from eating in the first place.

Depending upon the body condition of the hatchling I will not attempt to assist/force feed until I think they are becoming too weak to take food on their own.

Note: I have never had the need to assist/force feed an adult ball python, they always seem to eat eventually...

[redshepherd]

I also figure the most likely cause is the ball python was suffering from some fatal ailment which was what was causing it to not eat... Not necessarily because of the assist feed.

[SilentHill]

the reason we assist fed is because we've had another baby BP refuse to eat. we'd been planning a vet visit but he didn't make it.
i figure this one may have had an underlying condition, as suggested...first 2 attempts were live no interest. then she tried really hard to get a fuzzy down (live) but ended up spitting it back out of her mouth 2 hrs later and it was still alive. tried a large pinkie and had no interest then this am assist fed.

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[Bogertophis]

I've heard of it happening now & then. Personally I'm not a fan of 'assist' feeding ever, but I've had great outcomes with the more gentle method of tube-feeding
thinned (w/ a little water) chicken baby food to snakes...no bad outcomes ever, done many times. It's a skill I recommend picking up...sorry for your loss. I think it
probably was not a result of anything you did, but rather occurred in spite of it.

[SilentHill]

I've heard of it happening now & then. Personally I'm not a fan of 'assist' feeding ever, but I've had great outcomes with the more gentle method of tube-feeding
thinned (w/ a little water) chicken baby food to snakes...no bad outcomes ever, done many times. It's a skill I recommend picking up...sorry for your loss. I think it
probably was not a result of anything you did, but rather occurred in spite of it.

we have syringe fed egg yolk successful to picky little corn snakes before. didn't even cross my mind for her. thank you for the reply.

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[Bogertophis]

we have syringe fed egg yolk successful to picky little corn snakes before. didn't even cross my mind for her. thank you for the reply.

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I've never used a syringe (alone), out of concern that the hard plastic could hurt a delicate snake mouth. I attach a human urethral catheter (flexible rubber and WAY thinner than anything a snake normally swallows) to the syringe to feed & have done this successfully with various sizes & types of snakes, even a young rattlesnake, & tiny hatchling desert glossy snakes (about 7" long). Snakes that are weak can digest the protein rich chicken baby food readily...I sorta worry about salmonella with raw eggs, though I know of others that have used raw eggs too. Sorry for your loss though...probably just wasn't about food anyway.

[SilentHill]

yeah i was just informed about some other symptoms i would have chosen vet over feeding if i'd known.

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[Stewart_Reptiles]

Yes it happens especially considering how it was done, this is not assist feeding but for feeding BTW, there are better ways than what was done.

[SilentHill]

it wasn't shoved down her throat but rather placed in her mouth.
we will have necropsy results this evening.

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