When do you decide enough is enough?

[hugsta]

Of course i have the time to be able to feed one snake once a week because my snake's are my hobby, where as your snake's are your work. Im sure you spend most your time cleaning, feeding, breeding, incubating and so on, it would be impossible to do all of that AND look after a stubborn snake or 20. I do not think you are cruel at all, but instead of euthanising the snake's that wont feed i can take them off your hands hahahaha

I had a friend on this site do exactly that, he had a couple of P. henrylawsonii that weren't doing well and were most likely going to die. A person said he would take them and look after so he gave him the animals. 6 months later, when the animals died, he was on the phone demanding replacements as they had died. He never got them obviously, but guess what happens now, those they are not going to make are euthenised and not given to anyone. The same reason why I would rather euthenise a snake or lizard rather than give them away.

 

[wokka]

Is "feedability" heritable? Are we perpetuating the problem by forcing non performers to survive?

 

[Tristan]

question.

how much effort is it to force feed a snake? and is it a lot of effort to do once a week, at most? for juvies and once a month or so for adults? (talking 1 snake here obviously it compounds exponentially with multiple)

but for me personally the decision to keep feeding/put down would be a case by case i would base decisions on.
health of the animal
comfort of living of the animal
difficulty of the feeding
and a host of other factors

so depending on the answer to many factors i may continue force feeding or simply euthanize in my case tho (not breeding) this would be a significant financial loss as well to be considered.

Is "feedability" heritable? Are we perpetuating the problem by forcing non performers to survive?

only if the particular cause in that instance is on a genetic level, if the cause is environmental or anything other than a genetic issue it will not be passed on

 

[Waterrat]

Depends on how long it had been feeding on it's own for. What do you mean by appeared?

Stunted growth is sometimes hard to detect and the snake may appear OK. Is none-responsive behaviour (to food) hereditary? I don't think we the answer to that, and that is what would worry me.

You beat me to it wokka. lol

 

[Kimberlyann]

he was on the phone demanding replacements as they had died.

Wow!:shock:

In my eyes everything should have a chance of life, apart from bugs, im not keen on bug's lol and the animals that are bred as food (cow's, sheep, rats and so on) their meaning of life is to keep other's alive. That's just me thou everyone has their own option's. If i had to stress out a snake once a week to keep it alive i would, unless it was not getting any healthier from it then i guess i would give up.

 

[Waterrat]

You are right Tristan, it depends on the individual snake and it also depends on the species. I can tell you, baby GTPs are bloody horrible to force-feed. It's not only that they are small and fragile but they just don't want to open their mouths. When they do and you stick the head of a pinky in, they bite into it hard and won't let go. Now you can't push the pinky any further down the throat. You then think, great, it has got a hold on the food and you let go of the snake. It immediately shakes its head and spits it out. Just so frustrating!

 

[Kimberlyann]

Stunted growth is sometimes hard to detect and the snake may appear OK.

By that do you mean would i breed a snake that i had to force feed that is too small to breed? Then no.
Or is stunted growth seriously harmful for snakes?

 

[KaotikJezta]

I bought an albino hatchy that was force fed up until a few feeds before I got her and she has only ever missed a couple of feeds with me and that was because she hates mice. Never refuses rats and she is growing nicely and very active so I don't see it is always going to be a problem down the track. I would never have bought her while she was still being force fed though as I have not done it before and didn't feel confident about it. When I eventually breed we'll see what happens and as it will be my womas first I doubt I will have too many problems but I would try everything else first. I think the breeder I got her off was force feeding the non feeders as it was easier than mucking around trying to feed them as he had 72 hatchies at the time.

 

[Waterrat]

Wow!:shock:

In my eyes everything should have a chance of life, apart from bugs, im not keen on bug's lol and the animals that are bred as food (cow's, sheep, rats and so on) their meaning of life is to keep other's alive. That's just me thou everyone has their own option's.

Captive bred snakes were not meant to be born in the first place. It's our doing - the big question is, because we brought them up, are we obliged to secure their survival and where does a quality of their lifes come into it?

 

[Tristan]

hmm that does indeed sound tricky,

ok this might be a wacky idea BUT, is it possible to blend the pinky with some water to make it a bit more liquified, then use a funnel and a small hose pipe and pouring the food directly down the throat?
the down sides i can think of tho would be need to ensure you get the pipe down the esophagus, and long term im guessing this could potentially cause a weakening in the throat muscles?

 

[pythonmum]

I had is dilemma last season with two hatchlings. They didn't start feeding in the first 8 weeks, but we're otherwise lively, so I decided to force feed before they lost condition. After doing that for a while (and continuing to offer feeds that were refused) I stopped offering or forcing for a month, then presented food again. One took off and fed like a champ with no issues. I felt fine about selling it with a full and honest feeding history.

The other never showed an interest in food. After a couple more months, it was obviously losing condition and looking poor, so I tried forcing again, but it died. I would never have sold it if not feeding and was sad, but relieved, that it died rather than lingering with problems.

Perhaps the first would have started feeding on its own if I had waited a bit longer, but I am pretty sure the other would not have. I am not sure how long I would have waited before I considered euthanising it, but I certainly would have considered this before the next batch of eggs.

 

[Waterrat]

hmm that does indeed sound tricky,

ok this might be a wacky idea BUT, is it possible to pure the pinky with some water to liquify it, then use a funnle and a small hose pipe and pouring the food directly down the throat?
the down sides i can think of tho would be need to ensure you get the pipe down the esophagus, and long term im guessing this could potentially cause a weakening in the throat muscles?

It's commonly done and it's probably better than force-feeding pinkies because you can also add vitamin supplements, calcium, supplements, water, etc.. The same amount of stress to the snake I guess.

 

[longqi]

The genetic influences have never been studied as far as I know
But overseas it appears that more morphs and albinos need force feeding than other reps

With the number of threads regarding Darwins in particular I wonder what a study may turn up
Problem is it would have to be a very long term study

Kimberly
Its very hard to know how healthy a snake is internally until something goes wrong
We also know virtually nothing about reptilian brains and simple things like pain responses are only just starting to be understood
So although a reptile may appear to be healthy we dont really know exactly what is going on inside

 

[Tristan]

ah cheers waterrat to me it seemed like a logical option i would agree the stress level would be pretty much the same.

its interesting about the genetics, to me it also seems logical to accept that cross breading would also increase the risk in genetic mutations/abnormalities, at the end of the day your making an animal that's unlikely to have existed naturally in the wild if it was a wild/natural birth of a cross bread and it was a non feeder it would soon perish and this seems to simply be nature stopping the abomination from spreading.

i can understand fully someone wanting to force feed an animal to keep it healthy and alive but i don't think i would want to bread that particular animal.

 

[Poggle]

This is actually a good topic i think, good chance to get those who have bred for years to offer what they have experienced. Waterrat how do you find GTP to start feeding. And in everyone who is reading this, what would you define as one of the hardest to get feeding.

 

[Kimberlyann]

is it possible to blend the pinky with some water to make it a bit more liquified, then use a funnel and a small hose pipe and pouring the food directly down the throat?
the down sides i can think of tho would be need to ensure you get the pipe down the esophagus, and long term im guessing this could potentially cause a weakening in the throat muscles?

Yes there is such thing as a pinkie pump, it looks like a big syringe, it mince's up a pinkie and can by put down the throat. A couple of the snake's that i have bought have had help with feeding with a pinkie pump.

I hope stunted growth inst a probleem because i have two jungle's one feeds like a pig and the other one has had problem's and is half the size, he is still perfectly healthy thru my eye's but sometime's he goes off him food and he is only 11 months old

 

[Tristan]

I hope stunted growth inst a probleem because i have two jungle's one feeds like a pig and the other one has had problem's and is half the size, he is still perfectly healthy thru my eye's but sometime's he goes off him food and he is only 11 months old

interesting, are there any studies to show snakes are supposed to be a particular size/age to be healthy? is it possible they grow to size based on need IE a snake hunting needs to be bigger/stronger where as a snake being fed (and presumably fed smaller meals?) would not need the same size and strength?

I'm 5,5 -5,6 and im healthier and stronger than some 6ft guys i know who have 20-30kg on me as well

 

[Kimberlyann]

interesting, are there any studies to show snakes are supposed to be a particular size/age to be healthy? is it possible they grow to size based on need IE a snake hunting needs to be bigger/stronger where as a snake being fed

I was looking around on YouTube the other day and found this video of fossel's of a snake that was around in dinosaur days or something like that and it was 42ft because of the size of the food it was eating and the temp's where it lived.
Also Brian did a "test" on corn snake hatchlings where he had 4 different kinds of feeding methods.
1st one was smaller feeds
2nd one was larger feeds
3rd one was vitamins with each feed
and the last one was double feeding
Or something along those lines, i have the worst memory. I can find you the video and send you the link if you are interested

 

[Bandit05]

im with you waterrat. unless i gave it to a friend i could trust i would humanely euthanize them. i dont see the point in bringing a known weak animal into captivity and having it possibly breed down the track. we need the strong to survive and breed.

I wish more people were like you two, a few years ago as a beginner I bought a Bredli hatchling from a shop I wont name, she didnt have a feed chart but I was told she had one and it would be mailed to me ( Im still waiting ) After having her 3 weeks and not even managing to make her strike at food or anything else I took her to a vet, I was told she looked like she had never fed, she had no swallow reflexes and started to choke trying to regurgitate the pinky when assist fed and it had to be removed. The vet said he could try again in a week but said even if she managed to swallow it she would probably have to be force fed for life. We tried again but the stress ended up killing her.She was the sweetest snake but I wish she had been euthanised. It was stressful for both of us and I ended up being out of pocket several hundreds of dollars

 

[Tristan]

hi Kimberlyann,

sounds good thanks.