Scenting Views

[guidofatherof5]

Saw something interesting today and thought it was worth adding to this thread.
Armed with thawed pinkies in warm water and some night crawlers I entered the concinnus paddock. The pinkies were for the anery female and the worms for the anery male.
The anery male was on top of a hide so I grabbed a night crawler with my long hemostats and offered it. He was glad to take it. I didn't know if the cold hide he was on top of was occupied so I offered another night crawler by dangling it in front of the hide entrance. This was met by a large concinnus female shooting out of the hide and grabbing the worm.
It was then something funny occurred. She opened her mouth and acted like she had the foulest tasting food in her mouth. She finally ejected the worm and gave me a stair. It was then I had a scenting idea. I grabbed the worm in the hemostats and dunked it in the pinky water. I once again offered it to the big girl and she readily took it and ate it.
Just luck you say! No, I then tried to give her another unscented worm. She refused it until I dipped it in the pinky water. I repeated the trial 2 more times with the same results. I then offered a pinky to the anery female, which she took. Hoping she would now take a worm since she was in the eating mood I offered one and she refused. Dipping it in the pinky water solved the problem. She enjoyed both pinkies and worms for dinner.
Running short on mice? Not a problem, scent worms with pinky water.

[d_virginiana]

I always thaw my fish and pinkies and wash off my worms in the same cup... Everyone has been a lot less picky since I started doing that

[chris-uk]

I always thaw my fish and pinkies and wash off my worms in the same cup... Everyone has been a lot less picky since I started doing that

I used to do this until I realised that my "fish-eating" Cuitzeo male was refusing fish, and refusing pinkies that had been defrosted with fish, but he would eat pinkies that had been thawed in water with just pinkies.
My blacknecks have only been eating trout fillet recently, but yesterday I mixed small pieces of trout with picky off-cuts (I trim off the legs if they are sticking out at awkward angles) and wrapped them up in cling film together (kind of like I was making a ballontine of trouty salmon ). Both of them cleared their bowls so the disguised pinky parts went down well.

[guidofatherof5]

This evening was a food night and I was at the last snake cage but all I had left was night crawlers. This usually wouldn't be a problem but this was the male T. s. concinnus - Red-spotted garter snake paddock. They were fed pinkies a few days ago so they would more then likely want the same, refusing the worms. Sure enough, that's what happened.
Well, I wanted them to eat so I decided to scent the worms with the pinky water I had left. It worked like a charm, all those in the cage eat the worms but only after they were dipped in the magic sauce.

[d_virginiana]

My snakes don't seem to be fooled by the water trick, but my pacman frog always is. If she's being finicky I just have to wash the nightcrawlers off in fish-water.

[guidofatherof5]

I've had a few that weren't fool until they were very hungry