Hi!
I have a couple of baby hognoses that refuse to eat anything but boiled pinkies. I’m glad they are eating because one of them was 3 months without eating prior to that. My concern is if it can be detrimental or have some digesting issues down the line if they eat the pinkies cooked?
Thank you!
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Interesting post! Until just recently I had never heard of a boiled pinkie. However I just recently acquired a beautiful baby gray banded king snake and she was eating boiled pinkies when I got her and she still is. However my method of pinkie boiling (as instructed by the breeder) may not be the same as yours. For this reason I don’t consider my pinkies as actually “cooked”?
All that being said, I never really thought about long term effects. Hopefully others will submit their input to this subject because I would like some opinions/information.
As far as Hognoses go, Easterns are harder to switch to rodents due to their frog/toad/lizard, etc diet in the natural wild environment.
Westerns, which is what I have, are easier to train to rodents but they will still eat other prey in the wild. However, my little man is a stubborn little Hoagie Hog so he can and will turn his snout up at about almost anything! Lol!
C’mon guys! Jump in anytime! Lol! 
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Start boiling them less and less would be my tip.
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Yes that makes sense. Actually I bring some water to almost a boil, a few bubbles, then remove from the heat, pour some in a small glass jar and drop a pink straight from the freezer in the jar and let it sit for 12 to 15 seconds, remove it with tongs, dry it off and pop it in the deli container with my gray banded king snake. So I don’t consider actually boiling it….
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The most important thing is that your babies are willingly eating. That’s a win! Kudos to you! I have occasionally dealt with stubborn baby corns who will take what the hobby calls boiled pinks. The prep most people use is about what @caron describes.
Don’t worry, your hoggies won’t need this forever. It’s not going to be a problem nutritionally. It’s much more important that they eat. Getting their digestive tract moving and their metabolism boosted with a few regular meals will stimulate their appetite. This will help drive them switch to regular f/t.
What I usually do once a feeding holdout has accepted boiled is to give the next 2 meals the same way. I don’t want to make a change which might send it off food again. After three meals this way, I just start offering the pinky as regular f/t first. Offer it the same time of day, with the same method as the meals which have been accepted. If it doesn’t work, just prepare that pinky boiled and offer it. (It’s normally accepted at that point.) Keep doing this. One day the snake just takes f/t and that’s normally that.
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Yes @caryl I agree. Unless it’s spoiled, food is food now matter how it’s prepared. And yes consistent feeding times play a role in successful acceptance by the animal. I try to mimic what the breeder was doing in the beginning until I establish my own system. As long as food goes in, gets processed and then comes out, everything is good! lol!
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Let me flip the narrative for you to help alleviate your concern - Do you worry about the cooked chicken/beef/pork/whatever that you eat? 
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I think his concern might be the some of the nutritional value from the animal being lost by cooking it, or at least that’s how I took it 
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I curreny boil the pinkies for 1 minute. I tried boiling them less and they refused to eat it
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Well, my main concern is that the meat is harder after being cooked so, since they are designed to eat their prey raw, I didn’t know if the fact that is cooked can harm them in any way in the long run…
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It’s a reasonable question. I have known of it being asked before, though I’ve never seen any scientific data to truly answer the question. (Not saying said data might not exist, just that I haven’t seen it lol.) I don’t know how efficient the snakes’ digestion is with extracting nutrition from not-raw prey.
Still, the important point is that this will be brief. Though you may feel like you’ll be boiling pinkies forever, you won’t. The snakes will switch before long. Even if it’s a matter of several more weeks, that’s a mere snippet of time across the lifespan of the animals. And even if there is some nutritional loss, it is short. It’s so important to get them feeding consistently .
It wouldn’t be nutritionally ideal for me to subsist only on yogurt and peanut butter and honey but I can do it for an astonishing length of time. Do not ask me how I know this. 
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While the meat may be physically harder, the proteins are actually more broken down so they digest more easily
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Makes sense. Do you know if there are any microflora in the prey’s gut which survive freezing? I don’t suppose it matters much with pinkies. I was wondering more about adult prey items.
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Short answer - yes and no
Long answer will have to wait until Monday because I am bout to head home for the day
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Okay, lol. Have a good one.
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Wow, that really is quite interesting. I don’t really have anything to contribute, but I will tell you that I’ve noticed that the older hognoses get the less picky they are. Even just a couple months makes a big difference.
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This I would not worry about. Snakes are able to digest and process bone, the tougher skin would not be a problem.
Since I have not tried this process, I can not answer on the rest of it. Many moons ago, it was OK to microwave feeders to thaw them. I have done it (then stoped a short time later) but there was no ill effect and the snakes where healthy.
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I’ve always been under the impression that the reason microwaving feeders is now strongly discouraged has more to do with the risk of the rodent exploding in the microwave 
rather than concerns about cooking the feeder. Also because the microwave could make part or all of the feeder TOO hot, posing the risk of burns.
I could be wrong, but those are the reasons I’ve normally seen people cite as why you shouldn’t microwave feeders. 
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@jawramik, yes, I believe you are correct. It could explode and would definitely have hot spots. I am sure there are people who still do it. When I did, I let it sit after and I only used short cooking cycles to slowly do it. But that is in the past. Haven’t done it since late 80’s.
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