pinkies

[maverick]

I am currently feeding my snakes rosy red feeder fish. In september I plan to start them on pinkies. We have a reptile show coming to this area and I can buy a years worth of frozen pinkies real cheap, but back to the point, has anyone of you had trouble feeding pinkies for the first time?

[StoneSour]

If you have any trouble getting the garters to eat pinkies, try scenting them with fish or earthworms.

[Daniel]

Hi Maverick,

if you will have any troubles in feeding your garter snakes pinkys depends on what kind of garter snakes you have. If you have T. sauritus ssp. or T. proximus ssp. it could be difficult.

Best wishes,

Daniel

PS: Sorry, I haven´t seen your post with the list of snakes you are keeping in the other thread. Thamnophis radix doesn´t make any troubles in eating pinkys.

[wyldkardde]

I've been considering the switch over to pinkies. I have one snake that is of proper size now, so I'm definitely interested. Any advise for a total pinkie noob? How would you initially offer a pinkie to a snake who has never seen one?

[ssssnakeluvr]

you need to scent the pink with fish or worms...I use fish a lot, but if I have one that's partial to worms I will scent it with worms. It works fairly well, occasionally you will have one finicky one...my anery red sider will pick all around the pinkie parts and eat the fish.....

[Boots]

Changing the scent can help the snake realize that the pinky is food. I once tried to feed a red-tail boa a chick, but it did not seem interested. I thought the chick was a goner when it hopped on the snakes head, but nothing. The snake just sat there. After about half an hour of watching the chick hop around, I dropped a mouse figuring that I would be able to remove the chick when the snake went for the mouse. I seemed to work, since the second I dropped the mouse, he was ready to strike. The only problem is that the chicken saw the mouse at the same time, and went to peck at it. Not sure why them the chick would peck the mouse, but when the snake saw the chick attack the mouse, he decided that if the mouse was food, that the chicken must also be food. He ended up eating both, and I never had a problem feeding him chicken after that. Guess the mouse tasted like chicken or vise versa.

Jason

[Faunaofthenorth]

hey! I have had some trouble getting my garters to feed on pinkies and mice in general, but at first they wouldn't except anything at all, but everytime i would feed them fish i would introduce the rodents in the enclosure to get them used to the scent being that they were afraid of it. Then i scented them with fish and it sort of worked the first few times then they stopped accepting. So i found that earthworms did the trick as well as the urine from toads that excrete as a defense. My thamnophis sirtalis annectans seemed to take to rodents quicker than any other snake. Recently i got my albino checkered garter to feed on wild baby mice that i found abandoned. So its obviously not impossible just sometimes quite difficult, i mean now my female eastern is eating full grown adult rats so keep trying.

[Boots]

Originally Posted by Faunaofthenorth

Recently i got my albino checkered garter to feed on wild baby mice that i found abandoned.

An Albino Checkered Garter? I did not even know they existed. Any chance you have a picture or two to share?

Jason

[Faunaofthenorth]

yeah they are one of the most popular in the pet trade with the exception of gartersnakemorphs.com, and thamnophiswest.com. um im new to the forums um how do i post a pic? srry, i have them but don't know how to post them

[ssssnakeluvr]

don't forget donsgartersnakes.com LOL!!!!