They look wonderful, Jess, all of them! I’m especially happy to see Nod. She was absolutely, positively, without doubt THE most stubborn creature ever! Wasn’t she like a year and half old before she finally took that first voluntary meal?
Huge congrats again on finding her secret sauce!
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Indeed she was! I calculated it out to one year, five months, and three days. Quite the amount of time to hold out, very thankful I haven’t met another snake that stubborn. I think I shed actual tears the day she took that pinky. Nowadays I have to be careful she doesn’t go for my fingers. 
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I may have shed tears myself when I heard that she’d finally eaten happily! I know I yelled, “Oh, YES!!” and scared Dan to death. 
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To think, she went from causing all that stress and making us cry to eating unscented fuzzies and actively hunting for them before the enclosure is even open! She’s been steadily putting on weight and I suspect she’ll be catching up to my other two year olds soon enough.
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I am so, so curious about Nod’s entire story. What in particular Did she do that made her so hard? Would she only take it by force and never by choice? What finally won her over? Pure starvation (and quail eggs)? I guess I already know some basics but if there I more details, I am all ears.
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She would not take a feeding willingly no matter what anyone tried, and the three of us essentially ran through every trick in the book once, twice, sometimes thrice over. According to the notes I’ve got (because Olivia and Caryl keep wonderful records) the only meal she ever took willingly was one scented with frozen gecko offered to her by Caryl, and even that only worked the once. By the time she got to me, she was a year old, just under 24g, and every meal save the one had to be force fed.
The list of things tried included; leaving her overnight in a deli with the pinky, overnight in the enclosure, in a deli on top of a clothes dryer, taking her for a car ride in a box with a pinky, assist feeding, tease feeding, mice boiled, split lengthwise, brained, cooked, washed with dish soap, scented with raw egg, bird, lizard, frozen gecko, fresh gecko, tuna, salmon, chicken broth, baked chicken, bacon, egg yolk, and then finally quail egg which she took. I had found with some of my problem feeders that waiting them out (while of course monitoring body condition) eventually worked, so I did that first, then when just waiting didn’t work, combined it with quail egg scent and that did the trick.
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Also in case there was any question as to why live wasn’t tried, at least for me it was an accessibility issue. The closest store I know of that sells quality live feeders is an hour and a half minimum round trip, and I’d have to go every time I needed one. It just wasn’t a feasible option if it turned out that’s all she would take. That isn’t to say I wouldn’t have tried it as a last resort had she continued to hold out, I just wanted to exhaust every other avenue first.
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This is basically my situation too. Live just isn’t on the menu or in the bag of tricks.
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Same. Not only is live quite far from me (an hour each way), but they often do not have pinkies. Or they sell ‘pinkies’, but when I get home, I see that they’re actually more like small fuzzies and way too large for a 5 gram baby.
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Well, I may not have vets with expertise in corn snakes, but I can thank my lucky stars I have good live mice just 15 min away. Only one of my problem feeders took it, though, and they sure are pricey!
So when you say 134+ days, you mean she had NOTHING during that time? I mean I know you offered, but she never took it? Or do you mean you kept her alive during that time with forced feedings?
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I mean she had nothing, not a single meal. Believe it or not, she didn’t waste away, either. She came to me at 23.7g and by the time she finally ate, she was 21g. Body condition was slightly below normal, but she wasn’t triangular or anything.
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Wooooooooowwwww. That is amazing.
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Well, if Olivia is right that they just don’t recognize the mouse as food, and if no matter how hungry she was she wouldn’t eat a tire…I guess 134+ days made her hungry enough to finally try a tire!
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Honestly I’ve found this approach tends to work for all ages. I’ve been using the same technique for my babies this year that won’t take a meal willingly. I give them one force feed if they won’t take assist, then I wait them out. Cheesecake, for example. He hatched on 7/08, was force fed a chunk of mouse tail on 8/28, and decided to eat two pinkies willingly on 9/11.
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It’s probably like the cartoons where one castaway hallucinates that the other is a giant drumstick. Suddenly the tire looks like a scrumptious baby lizard.
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Nod was THE MOST STUBBORN critter about feeding! She was a bit of tease when she was here sometimes, nosing the food around like she was going to take it, but only the one time did she do so. She got force fed occasionally. I’ve had a couple who seemed to get the idea that a full tummy is nice and nice are food after a few successive weeks of having no choice about eating so at one point I went that route. Nope. Not Nod. It boosted her growth some but that was all. She was very good at holding her condition, generally.
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Corns, and snakes in general, continue to amaze me the more experience I get with them. They really are fascinating, curious little animals. Maybe I’ll try waiting it out, again, with the 12 that are still giving me a hard time. Although I am relieved to see some of them put on a little weight with the forced pinkies. Maybe I’ll grow them just a little bigger before I let them fast again.
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I think this is wise. Nod had put on weight and grown before she went on that long fast. Little babies have less ability to maintain themselves, less reserved. It’s necessary to keep an eye on weight and condition with youngsters.
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To add to this, when I wait out my hatchlings, I have a hard limit of 25% total bodyweight loss where I draw the line and start force feeding. Any more than that is asking for trouble, and even that is probably a bit much. Always best to make sure they’re not losing too much condition.
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Sound advice. Thank you both!
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