Offering a water bowl of chicken broth for a baby hoggie who is not eating?

[TheAwkwardTurtle]

So in case you haven't seen my other post I have a baby hoggie who isn't eating. It's been about a month and a half now. I took her to the vet a week and a half ago and he said she still looked healthy. He said to give her another two weeks before bringing her in for tube feeding. Her tube-feeding appointment is this Friday.

I was thinking about putting some chicken broth in a water bowl in her tank in the hope that she will drink it and 1) at least get some nutrients from the broth and 2) maybe getting any form of food into her will stimulate her to eat. I've got a lot of experience with aquatic turtles and I know some keepers will soak a sick turtle (especially delicate hatchlings) in chicken broth or some other vitamin/nutrient containing liquid so that they will drink it and get some nourishment.

Is there any reason this wouldn't work for a snake? Her regular water bowl would still be in there so she could choose whether or not to drink the broth.

[AlexisFitzy]

What other methods have you tried to get your hoggie to eat?

[AlexisFitzy]

Also what are you housing her in and what are her temps like?

[bcr229]

I have no idea whether or not it will work, but if you try it I would recommend against using a commercial product and make your own, as the salt content of the store-bought broth is off the charts.

[TheAwkwardTurtle]

The kind I'm planning to use is from a super organic health food store with super low sodium. I'm sure it still has some salt, but much less than most brands.

I've tried:
-braining
-feeding in a separate container (and leaving her in there overnight)
-putting pinkie in hide
-scenting with tuna
-scenting with chicken broth
-scenting with a live tiger salamander
-feeding warm boiled egg white
-feeding a super hot pinkie
-feeding a skin temperature pinkie
-tong feeding
-leaving pinkie in the tank

The vet (highly recommended by experienced reptile keepers and the Reptile Humane Society) recommended against trying live, especially since she was used to eating frozen thawed at the pet store (and apparently eating like a pig).

She's in a 10 gallon tank with lots of hides and cover from fake plants. She seems well adjusted to it apart from the not eating. She regularly sits out in the open, moved between hides, and even comes over to the glass to look at me.
Last night I added a bigger heat mat that should make the ambient temperature in the low 80s with a hot spot in the 90s, but before that the cool end was in the 70s with the warm end in the 80s with a 90s hot spot.
Thick aspen substrate. Water dish. She had an overhead light, but it seemed to be stressing her (at the pet store she just got ambient light from the lights in the store but didn't have her own dedicated light) so now she just gets ambient light from the room/window.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

The easiest is to try what I suggested which includes drastically downsizing the enclosure size to the one I mentioned, you might thing the enclosure is not n issue but obviously your snake went from eating to not eating since your care and that is a hint that something is wrong.

The other thing is to try all the scents I mentioned, doubt you tried them all since I posted.

Again

Get a smaller enclosure temporarily something like this (Sterilite 2.7 Quarts) http://www.walmart.com/search/?query=sterilite%202.7




and aim for 80/82 and 90/92

I used to keep my hatchlings until they reach 20 grams in those (now I actually use even smaller tubs since I have a Pencil Box Rack)

Try feeding live pinks.

If you do all that and it still does not work here are some things you can do (it is a step backward but sometimes you got to do what you have to do in order to get them on the right track)

Scent the pinkie with either

Tuna
Chicken Broth
Salmon
Anchovies
Toad

Might take different tries with different scents.

[Asherah]

A baby hoggie in a 10 gallon? How do you find him/her!?!

Drastically downsize on the tank, provide security for her, and try feeding live before subjecting her to the unnecessary stress of a tube feeding.

[TheAwkwardTurtle]

I'm not saying that I'm not planning to try downsizing her setup, I'm just asking about the chicken broth in the meantime. I want to give the increased temperature a few days to work before I start totally over with the whole "adjusting to a new enclosure". Even if she does feel more comfortable in a smaller enclosure it will still take her at least another week to adjust (very possibly more) and that's more time without eating.

And I've tried everything on that list except anchovies and a toad (which I don't have ready access to). I had listed in my original post that I had already tried scenting with chicken broth and tuna.

The tank really doesn't seem oversized to me, she definitely uses all the space, but like I said I'll downside her after I've given the heat time to work.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

The harder you delay the worse it will get and trust me you do not want to assist feed a hognose, it's no fun, and your hognose has already lost close to 20% of it's original body weight and it's not like you have a juvy or a massive adult, you now have a 8 grams babies.

Hognose are not BP they adjust to their new environment rather quickly especially if it is the right environment and this could have already been done 5 days ago.

Also you replace water with chicken broth your hognose could very well stop drinking and that is the very last thing you want.

[TheAwkwardTurtle]

Somehow it appears my hognose has gained weight without eating?

I took her to the vet again and she had actually gone up from 8.3 grams to 9 grams (he also said she looks very healthy and has good muscle mass). There is a chance that she ate one or two small pieces of chopped, boiled egg (but not enough that I could even tell she had eaten any). Just in case the vet's scale was just different from mine I checked her weight yesterday (a few days after the vet) and she was at 8.7 grams (she was 8.3 last time I weighted her on the same scale).

Comparing pictures from when I first got her and now I can see no change in body shape. The only change in her behavior is that she has become more bold, often shooting out of her hide when I reach in to change her water and chasing/hissing at my hand. She often sits out in the open in front of the cage and stares at me also. By all accounts she looks like a healthy snake that wants to eat, which is driving me crazy.

How do you all offer your pinkies? Maybe I'm just offering it to her in a way that she doesn't understand/scares her?

I know some people just brumate their snake when they start refusing to eat as the season changes. I'm assuming that wouldn't be a good idea in this case since she is so young and doesn't have much in the way of fat reserves.

At least she isn't losing any more weight.