• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Ivory Soap and Problem Feeders?

What does Ivory do when you microwave it?

Anyway, I think that it would be best to use unscented, non-anti-bacterial soap as well. Makes sense to me.
In the wild there are animals who will urinate or defecate on prey items so others wont eat it, so it makes sense to wash urine off of feeders if they have urine on them, and lets face it, bowells can let go when you die....
 
Sorry to double post....

The key here I think is that you want the urine off, which doesn't get done with plain water. (Dang stinky rodent urine!) I like the idea someone mentioned about putting them in water with soap in it, instead of scrubbing one with a bar of soap, and then rinsing. I mean Ivory, and other "plain" soaps (which is whats important, not the brand), has a bitter taste, so you want that rinsed off completely or the snake might refuse that as well.
BTW, I always feed mine still-wet mice (not dried off), on a plain tub bottom. They seem to like them wet, and they go down slick. :shrugs:
Just my 2 cents.
 
2 out of 12 worked for us last night. These two had never eaten on their own before, no matter the method; previously they were both gently force fed (an oxymoron, at best).

3 of the remainders actually shed during the night when they were left alone with the washed pinks. So that left 7 who still refused for no apparent reason. We'll keep using this method as needed. Afterall, if we can even save just one from starving to death, it's a highly worthwhile effort.
 
Hey, just to let you guys know another result. My partner had two non feeders at his house. He had one out of two eat. The one who ate was a baby cal king that had not eaten for two months!

The second one MAY be in a shed cycle, he couldn't really tell...

Rebecca
 
This is a very intereting thread! I'm very new to snakes and all, and so have very limited experience to draw on, but it got me wondering...
Our little guy eats like there's no tomorrow. Never had a problem. To defrost the pinkies, I place it, naked (meaning not in a baggie or anything) in a small bowl of hot water. Before I put it in the feeding box, I dump out the water (cool by this time) and add more hot water just to warm it up again. So, I wonder, if even rinsing is enough to get a stinky smell off the critter?
Here's a quesion....how do you thaw your frozen feeders? Are they getting 'rinsed' in the process, or are they kept separate from the water via a baggie? Or do you let thaw at room temps for a while? Or another method? It would be interesting to see if there is a correlation between food prep and eating habits.
 
Most corns are fine whether their rinsed, heated in a baggy, or soaked in warm water. I used to use the baggy in water method, but now I soak my mice directly in the warm water. Its only the stubborn feeders who have gone off of food (or haven't started eating yet) that people are trying to wash clean. Stinky, sticky, rodent urine is very powerful and hard to wash completly off with just water. Don't ask me how I know... lol
 
Update & Question

Last night I offered a washed pink to my refuser (second attempt and I had an extra thawed pink). I won't swear it was the washing because a few things changed since the last offer - moved into basement snakeroom, put on a corner rack away from activity, etc.

But, at this point, who cares? She ate. :santa:

Which leads to my next question for those who've succeeded at this before me - Am I now doomed to wash her mice for the rest of our lives? Do I only wash the next 2-3 meals before reverting to unwashed? Or do I try unwashed next and revert to washed only if she refuses?
 
Kitty said:
Last night I offered a washed pink to my refuser (second attempt and I had an extra thawed pink). I won't swear it was the washing because a few things changed since the last offer - moved into basement snakeroom, put on a corner rack away from activity, etc.

But, at this point, who cares? She ate. :santa:

Which leads to my next question for those who've succeeded at this before me - Am I now doomed to wash her mice for the rest of our lives? Do I only wash the next 2-3 meals before reverting to unwashed? Or do I try unwashed next and revert to washed only if she refuses?
Click to expand...
I'll let you know my results today. :)

Today is trial day. I am offering washed pinks to half of the snakes that ate washed pinks last feeding, and the other half are getting unwashed.
I will, of course, post my results here.

But I do know this. In cases where I got the non-feeder eating scented pinks, it would take 2 or 3 feedings, at the most, to get them switched over to unscented. For some of them, it only took one scented meal to kickstart them.
 
I tried this on my non-feeding BP with no luck.

However since lastnight was feeding night and I was washing mice, I gave a washed fuzzie to my corn (who never misses a meal). It was kinnda funny... the snake sniffed the mouse, looked at me, sniffed the mouse again, backed off, and looked at me again. Kinnda giving me a "what are you trying to do, poison me?" look. After about 30 seconds of paranoia, he ate it.

Go figure.
 
Well, I tried again with my 4 non eaters who hatched end of June, beginning of July. So far one actually ate! I almost feel like maybe I forgot to give him one! Of course out of two coral snow females, a ghost female and a ghost male it was the male that ate! And now I am wondering why am I doing this. I can't imagine selling him even if he does become an eater. I guess I am just soft but I can't be for much longer or we will be over run with snakes with issues!

Has anyone tried to breed a poor feeder and found that their hatchlings are poor feeders? It would make sense to me but I just wonder.

Jo
 
Cool thread let me add what I know.

1. The use of ivory is mainly because it is a very pure soap with no real sent all all. Like has been said the goal is remove all the urine and other foreign sents from the mouse. That leave the mouse smell you can't remove because well it is a mouse. You can use other soaps of course Ivory is just very mild and leave no soap smell.

2. I have used this with success myself mostly with house snakes. The littlle bit of corn breeding I have done has produced only two hard feeders and gecko scenting was all I had to do for those.

3. With house snakes I have used the soap wash in conjunction with lizard senting. House snakes and corns both feed on lizards as babies in the wild as babies so the combination of washing off the "stink" and lizard scenting works a lot of times when nothing else will. Lefty those house snake that still have not fed add lizard scenting and see what comes of it.

4. Lefty you rock another house snake guy, check out my blog at www.africanhousesnake.blogspot.com and PM or email me at [email protected] I would like to compare notes with you on breeding efforts and varing phases etc,
 
I washed with dawn lemon scented soap this last time. 2 out of 3 ate after washing, rinsing well, drying and scenting with anole. I'm not sure if the washing helped or not, but it's the first time the one has taken any food since it hatched.
 
I hope this doesn't count as 'jacking the thread too much, but when you guys scent after washing, do you use live lizard? dead lizard? or that bottled lizard-stinky stuff?
 
Yes, it's called lizard maker. I bought an anole and cooled it and then froze it. I just thaw it and put the pinky head or mouse tail in the mouth and roll it around in there well. The lizard goes back in the freezer when it's done.
 
I have never been able to find that lizzard in a bottle stuff. We have LOTS of mediterranean geckos here in Texas. The cat kills them and brings them to me as "gifts" when there is enough left of the little blighter to be useful I freeze them for use in scenting.

I have even removed skin and affixed it to the pinks. I sure would like to find that bottled lizzard stuff though, cat delivery is not only gross it is unreliable,
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top