• 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.

Yellow rat will only eat lizards

Siren

Siren

New member
I bought a yellow rat snake from a pet store a few months ago. He had recently eaten, so he wasn't hungry then, I could see a light bulge. And he has been a healthy, friendly, great snake save for one thing...he almost always refuses to eat mice. I tried feeding him out of his tank and forget it, he freaked out when out of his cage, so I broke my rule, and tried feeding him in cage I have tried pinkies, fuzzies, and small mice. Frozen and live. I have tried different color mice (I know, sounds stupid, but some people swear to me their snake will only eat a certain color, I was desperate). He seems interested and hungry. He'll nose them, follow them, then lose interest and go to the top of his log and stay there. I end up having to throw away the frozen mice, of it they are still viable, feed them to my corn snake who'd eat anything, dead or alive. The pet store has been helpful with me. One of the employees was honest with me and said he was a tough feeder, but he has always eaten the fuzzies, which are live. But sometimes he'd take a day or two. I tried wiggling them with tongs, again, forget it. I tried the split head, nope. Finally I caught an anole one day. Now and then I feed brown anoles to my corn snake. Brown anoles are ab invasive species. They kill and eat the native green anoles and their numbers are dwindling. I consider it my service to the green anoles. So one day I caught a brown anole that was kinda small, and not worth my big 4ft corn's appetite. It had been weeks since the yellow rat ate, so I put the anole in there....not 5 minutes later, I come back in and its nearly gone. So the next feeding, I scented a pinkie...nope. Only wants anoles.

So should I just give up the mice and go to lizards only? Any idea where a good place is to get them? I found one site that sells them, but they don't guarantee live and then say they could be underweight, missing tails, etc...I thought about buying a 20-50 of them and then working on feeding them and get them to better health, so then I can feed them to my snake. I don't feel comfortable feeding such unhealthy looking lizards to my snake. I rather them be fat and full of nutrients and calories....no one wants to eat an underweight cow right?

I've bred and raised pet green anoles before, eventually releasing them into the wild. So I know how to care for them.

Any points, tips, feeder lizard sites, etc
 
Lizards carry parasites, so they aren't a good long-term solution. Have you tried scenting with lizard shed, or lizard skin? Like actually attaching it to the pink/fuzzy? Or letting the pink/fuzzy sit in a bag of lizard to REALLY soak up the scent?
 
Or maybe try some bird scenting, such as chicken fat or raw chicken juice. Or even quail or finch chicks. If you get him on birds, then you at least have a commercial source and plenty of time to work on changing him from bird to rodent.
 
I tried rubbing the pinkies and fuzzies on the lizard and he does sniff them, but then he loses interest. And I'll leave them in there for a long time. I just caught an anole today and he gobbled it right up and is looking for more.
 
I have not thought about birds. There isn't a place around here to buy chicks, but there are pet stores that sell finches. I know they are easy to breed. The pet store I use to work at was always having new finch babies born there.
 
Yes, I've tried live fuzzies, pinkies, and mice. And I've also tried all those frozen too. I'm not use to such a picky eater. My corn snake will eat live or frozen, she is an exuberant feeder.
 
Siren said:
Yes, I've tried live fuzzies, pinkies, and mice. And I've also tried all those frozen too. I'm not use to such a picky eater. My corn snake will eat live or frozen, she is an exuberant feeder.
Click to expand...

Hmmm... I know this is gonna sound gross, but catch a nice, big brown anole, and freeze it. When it's good and frozen, thaw it out a bit, and cut off a section of the skin to wrap around the thawed frozen pink.
 
My suggestion was gonna be even more gross. Freeze an anole and blend it to a paste, then scent with that. Works really often with hoggies and toads.
 
elrojo said:
My suggestion was gonna be even more gross. Freeze an anole and blend it to a paste, then scent with that. Works really often with hoggies and toads.
Click to expand...

Apparently, it's also good to let 'em dry out, put them through a coffee grinder to turn them into a powder and roll the pink around in that.
 
Hmmm. That has to be less gross than my baby-food jar of toad mush.
 
But it's in the freezer! Right beside the mice, rats, and Stouffer's lasagna.
 
true, I have mice and rats in my freezer next to the peas. What grossed me out is thinking about useing my blender to blend a rat and then the next day whipping a soup with it! LOL~Those rats take longer to thaw than the adult mice. But the rats are more fun to feed. I like holding the tail for my snake!!! He grabs it so cute like!
 
RobbiesCornField said:
Apparently, it's also good to let 'em dry out, put them through a coffee grinder to turn them into a powder and roll the pink around in that.
Click to expand...

Oh, that sounds SO much less disgusting than the frog slurry I've made to try to get fussy hogs eating. Thank you thank you thank you!!!
 
I don't know if I could handle lizard scented espresso...

My Pyro male was the same way, drove me crazy for a whole year! I would feed him f/t anoles that I'd catch, and once a month I'd defrost a pinky in a ziplock with the lizard. I'd offer the pinky first and if he wouldn't eat it after a couple hours I'd give him the lizard. He finally started taking the pinkys and now he's on unscented fuzzys...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top