Babies first meal

[ReptileRant]

I made a post a week ago. I have 5 33 day old hatchlings that have yet to take their first meal. I left them completely alone ( rack is in an unoccupied room) for a week. I then offered live hopper mice. None of them ate. I have tried moving them to different areas before and it only worked for one baby. Any other ideas to get these guys to eat? At what point do they need to be assist fed.


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[Snow Balls]

Are they on paper towels or actual substrate? Justin Kobylka starts his hatchlings on paper towels and after a certain amount of times they refuse he switches them to cocoblox or reptichip idk which one he uses but he says it’s a sort of “enrichment” for them and 9/10 times he gets them to eat that way


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[ReptileRant]

Are they on paper towels or actual substrate? Justin Kobylka starts his hatchlings on paper towels and after a certain amount of times they refuse he switches them to cocoblox or reptichip idk which one he uses but he says it’s a sort of “enrichment” for them and 9/10 times he gets them to eat that way


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They’re on paper towel. I will definitely look into switching them. I use repti chips for my adults, but I’m always careful with babies.


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[Snow Balls]

I’ll have to find the link to the video then I’ll post it here


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[nikkubus]

If the swap to cocoblox/reptichip doesn't work, I'd try one more time with f/t and tease feeding and after that I'd probably move to assist feeding before they get too thin. Every animal is an individual and you have to take into account how thin they are looking to make the best judgement when it's time to intervene.

[Snow Balls]

https://youtu.be/jBBuMdYE2nk

Here you go, he starts talking about it at around the 6:05 mark!


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[ReptileRant]

https://youtu.be/jBBuMdYE2nk

Here you go, he starts talking about it at around the 6:05 mark!


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Ok, I will definitely try it.


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[ReptileRant]

If the swap to cocoblox/reptichip doesn't work, I'd try one more time with f/t and tease feeding and after that I'd probably move to assist feeding before they get too thin. Every animal is an individual and you have to take into account how thin they are looking to make the best judgement when it's time to intervene.

Any tips on assist feeding if it does come down to that? I’ve never had to do it before.


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[nikkubus]

The closest video I can find without a lot of digging is this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmGxa1yyJec

but I do a few things differently.

1- I'm doing it on a table or my lap so the snake can be let go of without falling or hesitation.

2- I'm paying attention to the snake's reaction and I've had enough experience to know if their feeding response hits the moment the prey enters their mouth, and if it does I let go of the body so they can coil right away. No need to force the stress of pushing to the shoulder of the prey like that if the snake is being receptive, but you do want to at least get it far enough that the head is fully in their mouth. Make sure any pressure getting it in past the teeth is on the roof of the mouth so that it's not damaging the glotis or preventing the animal from breathing. If you are not sure the difference between the feeding response and them just trying to get away from you, I'd just try just the head once and if its spit out immediately try again with pushing it further and try to get the head far enough touching their throat to trigger that response and be harder to spit out. You don't want to force the prey down their throat though.

3- The way I'm setting them down or letting them go is quickly but not with large movements flashing across the snake's field of vision because that is likely to cause them to freak out. The hand I'm securing with I'm pulling away from them outside of the field of vision so it's fast. The prey hand is a bit slower to back away from the animal to allow it to eat in peace.

Then I watch to make sure they get it down all the way into the stomach, being as quiet and still as I can till it's down and as delicately as possible get them back into their enclosure. If you do tubs like me, just providing the tub near them is usually enough they will go in on their own but you may have to pick them up for an enclosure. If you fail getting it to swallow with this method, you can try just keeping a hold of them with the prey in their mouth for a while, seeing if not being able to spit it out they eventually give up and just start swallowing.

I have about 90% success rate with just the head in their mouth and rarely have to resort to pushing it into the back of their mouth. The number one thing is using a small enough rodent because the smaller it is, the harder to spit out. Fuzzy mouse is generally the right size but if you have an especially small hatchling, a pinky mouse is better.