assisted feeding, help..........

[CheshireCat]

Our carpet pythons, both 6ft, won't eat anything but gerbils or hamsters. They treat rats like they've got leprosy and would rather starve than touch mice. We weren't told about this when we got them as adults, but felt we couldn't take them back because that's a defeatist attitude.

I've decided to give up on trying to obtain frozen gerbils and hamsters. There's either none for months at any of the online stockists or they're charging the same price for a tiny russian hamster as they do for a giant rat. Our carpets will eat 6 large syrian hamsters each at a sitting. No wonder when they've had to wait months for us to be able to find some!

The two hamsters (how can something so round and cuddly be so bad tempered?) I bought in keen anticipation of some hot action 2 months ago remain dedicated virgins, and we can't harm the burgeoning population of gerbils as it would taint their "pet" status in the household.

So, we've no option but to attempt to assist feed them

How? Please remember I'm a big wimp. How do you get their mouths open without hurting them, or causing stress to them or us, and how to do it for long enough to get a rat down there?

thanks.

[JuliusSqueezer]

I can't recommend assist feeding a snake that is not near starving just to get it to take a type prey more prefered by the owner. Carpet pythons can be finicky sometimes no doubt. I suppose feeder bats are probably hard to find too ...what about quail or chicks? tried that?

[herp_chick]

You could try scenting the rats with the hamsters or gerbils. Sometimes that works. I have to agree with JS on this one, assist feeding something that is not starving is not the thing to do.

BTW, how did you find out they would only eat hamsters or gerbils, if it wasn't made known to you when you acquired the snakes?

[telefrag]

they will get hungry eventually, I bet that if you wait them out they will take rats.

im sure they will opt to eat a rat rather than starve, whenever I've had snakes that will refuse rats over another food item (like guinea pigs, hamsters, etc) I dont feed them for a few weeks (they can handle it) and then keep trying with rats, and eventually they will take them.

good luck.

[Ed_r]

One thing you have to realize too is the present season. Most Boas and pythons go off feed, or slow down in feeding during the winter months. My Carpet hasn't eaten for going on 4 weeks right now. But up until last month he was eating a small rabbit every 10-14 days. I wouldn't worry about it.
Could be they are refusing cuz they really don't want any prey. I agree with telefrags idea that they will get hungry eventually.

And yeah unless they are on their last leg(scale) dont assist feed.

[CheshireCat]

thanks for answering everyone, even when you're just telling me off.

One of the carpets did eat a couple of rats when we got them but has since refused them. The other one just refused to eat full stop. At that time we put it down to either newby stress or time of year.

One day our local herp shop put a gerbil in the bag with several medium frozen rats of the same colour and size - they usually don't keep them in stock. At that time we were unaware of any other option aside from rats/mice/chicks and we'd been warned off chicks. We didn't know till we got home and noticed that this rat had a fuzzy tail. We tried it in desperation and he went for it straight away.

We've rubbed live gerbils and hamsters on rats with no luck. I contact online suppliers weekly trying to track them down but they say these are ex lab animals, they can't rely on supply and it depends what the labs are using at the moment.

JS, we have no preference to what we feed them. I've been quite willing to phone round all over the uk every week trying to track some down.
The hamster breeding project is just not working and we're too attached to our gerbils.

Lol, yes feeder bats are a bit difficult to find here and I believe australia doesn't export its native species. We've not tried chicks or quail - chicks were spoken against because of high water/low nutritional value. Do you think we should try/use these for when we can't get hamsters?

Thanks js and h_c, I'll take your advice and not try assisted(ouch)

[telefrag]

If you offer chicks, your likely to get into the same issue, they may switch from only taking hamsters and gerbils, to ONLY taking chicks.

Keep trying rats, they will eventually eat them.

I was given a coastal carpet many years ago that was fed primarily chicks, it took me 3 months to get him over to rats, and he started gaining weight, and having solid excrement again.

Chicks+snakes=nasty stinky poo.

[captainmorgan]

I've recently went from Rats to guinea pigs and one of my boas hasn't eaten it yet. I'm trying this right now. I have 2 dead rats that I froze with the guinea pig in hopes that when I unthaw them, some of the rat sent will get on the guinea pig. Maybe you can do that with a gerbil on the rats???

[JuliusSqueezer]

oh don't get me wrong...i'm not fond of the unpleasantries of cleaning up liquid fowl poo either...but I would deal with that before resorting to assist or force feeding. I too think that waiting them out is probably going to be your best bet. When he gets hungry, he will eat.

scenting by rubbing one type of rodent against another is fairly ineffective. What you need is the dirty litter from the desired rodent. Put the undesired rodent in a bag with prefered rodent shavings complete with urine and poo and shake vigorously...that's the best way I have found to scent food ....gross as it may sound lol.

[Burm-Bomb]

i would deff try braining a rat b4 i would try to force feed, as gross as this is