Little feeding trick

So I just figured out a trick to get my garter snake to eat pinkies.

He really doesn't seem to know what to do with pinkies, so I tried lots of different things I read on the forum. now my snake loves worms a lot. so I figured the trick with putting the smell of the worm on the pinkie should work great. he still wouldn't take the pinkie, he was just looking around the pinkie to see if he could find the worm. I also tried taking some brain out of the pinkie and putting it on his nose and that didn't do anything.

So now I just took a small piece of worm and pushed it inside the mouth of the pinkie (make sure its in far enough that it won't fall out as soon as the snake touches it). as soon as I put the pinkie back in with my snake he grabbed it right away and the pinkie was gone in seconds.

I'm sure this will work with other foods as well, say your snake loves fish, just put a piece of fish in the mouth of the pinkie.

Anyway, hope this will help someone :D

Good idea. Thanks for posting it.

I'm going to have to try this. My 2 bigguns won't touch anything but worms. My lil guy, a friggin idiot, will only eat fish now. However, I scented a pinkie with worm and put it in the enclosure. The two big ones could care less, but my little 6 inch, thin as a rail moron of a cutie pie decided he wanted it and just carried it around the enclosure for about 10 minutes before I stopped him. The damn pinkie is like 5 times the size of his head and he was getting absolutely nowhere. Silly goose.

Similar to a trick I've used a couple of times with snakes that tong feed.

Get them eating a piece of their preferred food, then when the front of their mouth is clear place the other food into their mouth. They will keep chewing down the food they are already eating, and at the same time draw the other food into their mouth. By the time they swallow what they want to watch the other food is so far in that mine have always carried on to eat it.
I call it "using the conveyor belt method".

Little update

After feeding my garter a pinky with a worm in its mouth a few times in a row I managed to get him to try one by just scenting it with worm. he went for that about 3 feedings in a row. and today for the first time he finally decided to take the pinky without any scent on it. I'm very excited about this.

So I guess a good thing to remember is to always keep trying the pinky by itself before you scent it or do whatever to it. just keep trying, and maybe eventually you too will get your garter snake to eat a pinky without any trouble.

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Originally Posted by michieldewit

So I just figured out a trick to get my garter snake to eat pinkies.

He really doesn't seem to know what to do with pinkies, so I tried lots of different things I read on the forum. now my snake loves worms a lot. so I figured the trick with putting the smell of the worm on the pinkie should work great. he still wouldn't take the pinkie, he was just looking around the pinkie to see if he could find the worm. I also tried taking some brain out of the pinkie and putting it on his nose and that didn't do anything.

So now I just took a small piece of worm and pushed it inside the mouth of the pinkie (make sure its in far enough that it won't fall out as soon as the snake touches it). as soon as I put the pinkie back in with my snake he grabbed it right away and the pinkie was gone in seconds.

I'm sure this will work with other foods as well, say your snake loves fish, just put a piece of fish in the mouth of the pinkie.

Anyway, hope this will help someone :D

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I've done that. That's how I got flicker to take them. tried for months though before he took it. He seemed to know the difference and would spit it out. But one day he was really excited and biting at anything that moves. gave him a few worms then did a switch on him and he grabbed it ans swallowed it. Shannon used to tie a night crawler around a pinky. they just keep swallowing, pinky and all.

Tied a worm around the waist a fuzzy once. Worked fine that one time.

little trick I discovered this summer.... I put a frozen thawed pinkie in the water dish with a live fish or two.... in their feeding response they grab the pinkies and chow down. haven't had one refuse a pinkie that way

see the problem with mine was that he wouldn't eat fish either

the way i got all 4 of mine to take pinkies was pretty much go a week at a time putting a pinky in the tank for a few hours maybe a day and give them very little of the preferred food. it didnt take to long at all. hell all 4 of mine will eat anything now worms chicken liver and pinkies.