Yeah! Finally got her to eat a Pinky!

[Beautifylgirl]

So as you all have probably read, I have been trying to get my snake to eat something other than fish. I have tried worms previously and she wasn't very interested. So the other day I found a store that sold frozed pinkies in singles or 3 packs. I thought what the heck all I can do is try.
Well the first try was not a success. I put the pinkie, warmed up of course, in a baggie with fish pieces to scent them with. Well she did not like that, she was interested of course but not that intersted.
So I waited a couple more days and tried again, but this time I put a live fish in the feeder dish. Snake ate the fish. Okay so she's hungry not time to try the pinkie. So I put another fish piece into the dish and put the pinkie in there also( yes yes,I may get yelled at for cross contamination but this was an experiment). She went straight for the pinkie instead of the fish piece! I was so ecstatic. After she ate the pinkie she finished off her fish, but the fact she actually ate a pinkie made me very happy.
Mind you that durring this entire time my husband thinks I'm a total looney because he came home to a dead mouse in a plastic baggie in a dish of warm water in the sink. He just about jumped out of his skin and told me I'm a horrible human being for feeding dead baby mice..... I found it quite funny because this man is perfectly fine with me feeding live fish and worms and such but the fact that its a dead frozed mouse baby makes it all wrong. He should be glad I just have a garter not a Python or something.

[Thamnophis]

That's good news!

Your husband just loves "babies"... what could that mean?

[Cazador]

Congrats on your success!

[Snaky]

I also keep Lampropeltis, they get full grown mice... I get quite some reactions on that, expecially when I give them alive...

But it's nice to hear that she has some new variation in her diet.

[Sid]

Congradulatios Brittany,

I know how you feel. I finally converted my pair of Red-Spotted and two of my young Easterns. Last week all four aggresively took live pinkies with no fish mixed. Don't think I could have gotten this done, had it not been for good advise from this forum. Thanks everyone!

Sid

[Stefan-A]

Just a quick thought: Will it be easier or harder to get the garter to take strips of meat, than to get it to take pinkies?

I suppose you'd have to use the same old scenting method to get it started, but does the scent of blood help at all?

[GarterGuy]

Congrats on getting your Valley garter to take pinks. As for your husband, I guess he'll just have to get used to things. My wife had to get used to seeing bags of frozen mice and such in our freezer too. When you're not used to it, moving the dead mice out of the way to get the icecream can be a bit to get used to.

[Cazador]

Sid,
Way to go!

Stefan,
I've found that giving the meat strips a bit of motion with the fishing line trick really helps peak their interest. I think the level of difficulty is about the same for pinkies and meat.

[Thamnophis]

Originally Posted by Stefan-A

Just a quick thought: Will it be easier or harder to get the garter to take strips of meat, than to get it to take pinkies?

I suppose you'd have to use the same old scenting method to get it started, but does the scent of blood help at all?

Most of my gartersnakes all ate strips of meat and also pinkies the first time I offered them. For some specimen it took a few weeks before they did this.