Hello,

I've got a multitude of snakes of my own, but have never bred or dealt with non-eating hatchlings before. I've converted multiple 1-2 year old BPs from live to frozen thawed without too much trouble, at most a few weeks off before they would switch over. I've also bought a few hatchlings and was able to convert them to f/t no problem at all! I've got something around 30 snakes, of multiple species.

Anyway, I'm being paid to snake-sit for a breeder. In exchange she's given me a few snakes, two of which are a female normal and male yellow belly hatchlings, hatched in the first week of September. They were problem eaters and did not eat before I received them, as the breeder was leaving on the 10th of October. They were icing on the cake for my payment, since I had received cash and two other snakes, so I wasn't worried about getting them to eat. When I received them they still had not eaten (10th). I waited a week and got live hopper mice. I stunned them a bit and put them in large separate containers with the hatchlings. The female ate, and it was my first time feeding live. The male did not.

After reading the assist feeding thread and speaking to some friends who also breed, I assist fed the male a defrosted large mouse pinkie. I got the head in and he did the rest. The next week I tried live hoppers again for the both. The female ate once more, and the male did not. I tried to assist feed him a f/t hopper, then f/t fuzzy, but he kept spitting them out. A pinkie worked once more. The next week his sister took f/t for the first time, and he didn't eat at all. A few days ago the female took another f/t and is doing quite well and has already grown. The male would again only take a f/t pinkie.

At this point, I'm very worried about him getting enough food for one, since he wont eat anything larger than mouse pinkies. He's smaller than the female already. He won't take more than one pinkie in a feeding as well. Would trying anoles or house geckos work as well as with cornsnakes? And then there's the possibility that, as with some corns, they'd only ever eat with lizard scenting first. I've tried scenting live and f/t mice with their poop, I've tried no water and dipping them in water, etc. All the methods I've used have worked, and I've had corns and a bp that have gone months without feeding before and those methods worked. The issue is that he's a hatchling, and I am worried that he's just not going to make it.

What course of action would you all try? I'd rather not get into force feeding because I do want him to be able to take food on his own, but if that's a must... I'm a bit scared that continuous assist feeding will mean he'll never take food on his own. At least f/t are pretty easy to assist feed, but he still won't take anything large enough. He can't possibly survive on a single mouse pinkie a week his whole life.

Any help would be great, thanks! I've reached the point where I'm at a complete loss, and I think I need some bp expert specific help for the situation, not just researching the threads on here and consulting friends who haven't dealt with a problem like this to this extent.