| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Lee |
Posted - 11/02/2014 : 12:14:48
Some of you may know that I have a 17 month old corn who doesn't eat on his own. For 4 months he ate nothing but did drink, as he was losing weight (originally 30g) I decided to try assist feeding. I have tried all the tricks in the book and asked on here before but he has absolutely no interest in eating.
Assist didn't work so 6 months ago I started force feeding, well I am still forcing and don't know what to do. It's not a nice thing to do and he's very good at getting it back out unless I push it all the way in, which is stressful to us both. When the mouse is in he swallows it fine, poops fine, is active and drinks, there are no obvious illness/injury issues.
I'm not sure what's next, will he ever eat? He has grown a little and is now 41g but he's tiny for his age, his brother is 139g and much longer.
Do I carry on or stop forcing?
He's a lovely chilled out snake, even after the trauma of forcing, he goes back to being calm and docile.
All viv conditions are perfect and he lives on his own.
Any thoughts?
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| 3 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| Lee |
Posted - 11/02/2014 : 20:33:58
Thanks for the support guys, I'll keep at it as as said stop and try other methods every few weeks. I think because of this start in life he may be a smaller snake but he's such a lovely little thing I would never want anything to happen to him. |
| herriotfan |
Posted - 11/02/2014 : 20:18:08
One of my males was a non feeder and I had to force feed him for a long time, well over a year.
It was all worth it though. Believe it or not he now does the ocassional strike and constrict for me!!
Hang on in there, with luck and perseverence you could end up with a beautiful snake like I did.  |
| smart bunny |
Posted - 11/02/2014 : 14:15:26
I can't help much - but can offer maybe a light at the end of the tunnel?! Our Colombian Rainbow boa wouldn't eat and when she got so thin we thought she was going to starve we tried the assist route (luckily we only ever had to assist, not actually go the full force feeding route). This went on for the best part of a year - every time we got her weight up a bit, we'd try different things again such as drop feeding, defrosting in warm water, defrosting on the side so it wasn't wet etc etc and then after maybe 6-8 weeks of no luck we'd go back to assisting. One day totally out of the blue OH was trying again, this time with a very hot mouse which was wiggled about in her viv. Totally shocked us when she struck from out of nowhere, coiled, drowned it in the water bowl (thought that would put her off lol!!) and ate!! She's not missed a feed since (except when in blue). Also her viv had been set up the same way for months, so it wasn't as if it was a change in husbandry or anything. So I would say don't give up yet, just every few weeks have a break and try different methods again for a few weeks and hopefully one day he'll suddenly realise he's a snake like Prism did :) |
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