Quote Originally Posted by Reesy View Post
OK, here's the story, Our little spider hatched on 7/30/12. Two days later she weighed 53 grams, on 8/11/12 she had not shed and she weighed in at 54 grams. On 8/18/12 she still had not shed, I offered her food (hopper mouse) because all of her clutch mates did shed by then. She refused to feed. I weighed her again today and she is now at 49 grams. She has lost 10% of her body weight now. Should I try to force feed her? Thanks for any inputs with this. She is the only one of this clutch that I really wanted to keep.
I too had a wee one hatch this year that didn't shed with the rest of his siblings. He showed no interest in food and I finally gave in to assist feeding after exhausting all other methods. Assist feeding should be a near last resort thing while force feeding should absolutely be the last resort for getting food in a baby.

What I do is gently grasp the snake by the base of the head(on the sides) with my thumb and index finger. I then use the nose of a dead rodent to jimmy the mouth open and push the prey far enough in that the teeth hook and the snake can't easily drop it(with the prey size I use this translates to just the head of the rodent actually being in the snake's throat, thus out of sight). If the snake is an especially squirmy/resistant one I'll hold this position for a few moments giving them time to settle down a bit. I then I place the snake back in its tub/enclosure/etc and walk away. More often than not this is all that is required to trigger a swallowing response. If they continue being stubborn I'll use a smaller prey item. Most catch on quick enough once the rodent is in their mouth and very few require further assistance.