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Finicky Milk - What do you suggest next

Jonathan P

Jonathan P

New member
Hello all (sorry about the length)

I have been reading this site and many of the forums plus the many other wonderful forums out there about similar breeds and difficult feeders.

I recently purchased a nice albino Nelson's milk as a hatchling from the local Petco. Caught them at the right time as it was mispriced and I got a good deal. Supposedly it was eating f/t pinks. The first weekly attempts with a f/t pink and Starburst in essentially a butter dish failed. The 2nd week I attempted a live pink in the smaller container again, no good. The 3rd was surprisingly immediately successful with a f/t as all the local stores were out of live pinks.

Since then the 1st attempt of another f/t pink was refused - he was left in the feeding container at the temp of 80 degrees overnight. The 2nd week I tried tuna scenting of the pink, again no go. 3rd week was a live pink, nope. Since he was still looking strong and not emaciated I decided to keep trying 4th week I tried chicken scenting and he seemed interested so I left the room to insure no interuptions, next morning no luck. This week being the 5th made me worry - he still looks strong and is mellow but exploring his viv a great deal more. So I tried anole scenting - extreme interest but didn't eat.

Boosted by his interest in the anole scenting and not wanting to wait another week and risk having to force feed him I decided to try purchasing a decent sized live anole, just 1 day later. I put it in the feeding container and put the feeding container sealed in his viv. He came out and started exploring the feeding container. After about 15 minutes I picked him up and set him in with the anole. After 5 minutes of exploration of the small container he started licking the anole on its tail then began looking for the head. 5 more minutes and I heard what sounded like the lizard scrambling to get out/away. I peaked and he had the anole by the head and was constricting like a pro. He has finished the anole and after an hour of rest I removed the lid from the feeding container and will allow him to crawl out into his main viv at his leisure.

The anole didn't leave as big a bulge as I had expected.

Any suggestions as to what should be my next feeding after this? I am hoping to not have to go through the several week process again. Any thoughts?
 
Mabe the reason you got such a great deal on this snake is because of this problem, I would take it to the vet to make sure nothings wrong.

They are secretive eaters so mabe try putting your snake and its prey in a brown paper bag and leaving it over night. If this dosent work mabe you have not let it settle in long enough. Try leaving it alone for a few days before hanling/trying to feed.
 
Snakes can go a long time without eating... an anole should have been the absalute last thing you tried... you should hive tried braining the pinky first.. or teasing him with a anole scented one... now if your unlucky the ONLY thing he will accept will be an anole.. and that will get exspencive.. i hope for your sake he starts taking mice :)
 
I'm with Ryan on this one! Always try braining before scenting !
Once they get started on anoles, its awfully hard to get them on anything else. :sobstory: I guess anoles are like crack to snakes! :shrugs:
Possibly try sticking a piece of anole tail in the pinks mouth.Good luck!
I hope you can get him back on rodents again.
 
We have only converted one snake from reptile prey (he was actually a cal king that wouldn't start on mice - so I started him on cull corns) to mice and what worked for us was to use peices of shed reptile skin to cover the mouse. When the skin is damp it will stick to the body of the mouse and I had to offer 2-3 of these before this cal king would take a pinky mouse that had snake scent on it. After that he took unscented. I did wash the dead mouse first to try and remove mouse scent the first time I offered it with snake skin on it.

You should be able to maintain a couple anoles alive to use for scenting with skin. You can also consider washing the dead pinky well and then putting it in a container (deli cup) with an anole for an hour or so, so it will pick up the anole scent. Also rub it well on the anole before offering it.

Braining may also help - while you can cut open the head of the pinky (already dead of course), we find that if we just squeeze the head forward from the back of the skull, the brain tends to ooze out the nose - the smell seems to really attract reluctant feeders.

Best of luck,

mary v.
 
Thank you all so much for the advice!

Now I see what I missed before with my research. Hopefully now that I know about braining and understand what it is, I can wean Starburst off anoles before he gets hooked.
 
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