Syringe feeding hatchlings?

[BlueMoonExotics]

I have a little girl from a clutch born 8/11 and she still has yet to take any meals for me. The clutch was an odd one as you can see by this thread: http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...699-Odd-clutch. One of the babies had a slight kink in her neck but she (and the rest of her sisters) is eating with a little help (assist feeding but they coil and eat it as soon as you open their mouth). However, the one I'm having issues with looks fine from the outside but I'm really starting to wonder if there is something wrong internally.

Live pinky and fuzzy rats didn't work. I even tried a live asf with no luck. Assist feedings have failed so far as well. It is really hard to describe what I'm seeing but the best way to describe it is she sometimes coils it and then she proceeds to try and eat it but she doesn't seem to use her neck muscles to "move it along" like I see the others do. She gets the rat down to about the arms and then starts to struggle from there. She tries pushing it against her body and the tub and eventually she'll spit it back out. The struggling can go on for a long period of time since she seems to "back out" of it up to the head and then try again to eat it. She seems to REALLY want to eat it but it's like something is preventing it from moving any farther (basically where her neck begins). I did take a video of it but it's too long to upload I guess. The last attempt at feeding was a fuzzy rat. For the sake of trying I even removed the arms (of course it was a f/t rat) thinking that maybe she's picky and the arms are irritating her to move along any farther. After that failed (still stopped at the same spot and started struggling), I'm left wondering if it's a physical problem or blockage in there like a narrowed esophagus or maybe even something genetically off about this clutch (kinks, odd patterns/colors and the whole clutch was female as well as the breeding being Normal x Mojave and getting no mojo babies).

I'm going to get the smallest pinky I can tomorrow and try again to see if maybe it's just that she can't handle fuzzies yet but none of her clutchmates have issues getting them down. However, if that doesn't work we have planned to take her to the vet next week. I had someone local say I could just freeze her and even offered to freeze her for me but I'm not ready to give up just yet (I don't really agree with this form of euthanasia anyway although I know some breeders do). With that being said, another person mentioned that I could try syringe feeding her with some Hills Science Diet a/d canned cat food. Now, I'm not usually one to take people at their word on things like that but I have heard about this before only I believe it was Marshall's ferret food that was ground up and mixed with water. I've also heard of tube feedings. Is this something I could try? Also, has anyone had issues similar to this and if so, what was the cause? Thanks for any replies I really feel at this point I've done all I can possibly do other than these 2 possibilities.

Here are some pics of her trying to eat and how far in before it stops:

[Stewart_Reptiles]

If an animal cannot eat on its own, or cannot be assisted or force fed to eventually be able to eat on its own than I am not sure what syringe feeding will accomplish except delaying the inevitable while putting the animal through additional stress.

Not all animals are meant to be, if the animal cannot be force-fed (which is the last resort) because of whatever possible physical abnormality, there won’t be any progress or any positive outcomes.

Now the question is have you try force-feeding the animal or just assisting the animal? BP will fight assist feeding and if not done properly or the prey is too big will spit the prey back out, since I am not sure what your experience is I am not sure if the problem is with the animal or the way you are doing things.

I would get a smaller prey rat pink or mouse fuzzy and I would force-feed that prey (yes those are small but when force-feeding you want a small prey) if successful and the prey does go down and is not spitted back up the next step will be assisting with a prey that size as well until you can gradually assist with slightly larger preys and eventually get the animal to eat on its own.

[BlueMoonExotics]

I have only ever attempted assist feedings with her. Never tried to force feed and to be honest I'm a little worried to try with her unless someone else with experience is doing it since I feel like it's possible that she has a defect preventing it from going down. I don't want to try and force something through and make things worse for her by ripping/tearing something. I have lots of experience with assist feeding but none with force feeding. For assist feeding I just open her mouth with the nose of the intended rat and then she bites and coils it or at least bites down hard so I know she's got it. When this happens I set her back down in her tub and what I describe in my first post happens. I did get a pinkie tonight to try her with so I'll update as to what happens.

[BlueMoonExotics]

Ok so I have a little bit of an update and yet another question this one pertaining to RI. I did try again with assist feeding a small pinky and failed (even tried helping it down to no avail). It just acted like an accordion and again didn't move past the same point. I watched her drink and she even seems to have the same issues with that. She sucks up the water but then it seems to stay in the pouch of her mouth/throat.

I have a friend that asked if he could give her a try tonight before I took her in to the vet and most likely had her put down (I was ready to do so) but I agreed to give her one last shot. He said he grabbed the snake to assist feed but made his way up her head from like 3 inches behind it. He said he guesses the subtle pressure he made to maintain control of her forced a huge white mucus out of her mouth so he thought maybe RI.

I hadn't considered RI because she hasn't shown any signs of it that I could see. No popping or wheezing or mucus/bubbles coming from her nose or mouth and none of the other snakes in the rack are doing any of those things either. So my question is, is it possible that she has an RI without showing the more common symptoms or is it because she's not eating/drinking properly that she has RI like symptoms? Or is it even possible that maybe when she hatched she sucked in a bunch of egg goo that thickened up and is preventing her from eating?