Let's get those newborns started!

First of all, congratulations on your clutch!​

Snake keeping is an art as well as a science, so everyone has their own methods and order they may employ them. Here's my protocols. I've developed them over the past couple decades and they work for me.  They may not work for everyone. Some people may not agree with all of these tactics, or find them all necessary. That's ok. I use them because I find them to be effective. 

Step 1). Set up hatchling bins. We house ours individually in a small plastic escape proof enclosures. At time of writing, ours measure 5" wide by 15" long by 3" high. They're basically jumbo pencil boxes. We find they do better in smaller spaces at first. Inside this bin goes a super tight hide and a water dish big enough to soak in. They're tiny so a black 2oz condiment cup with a lid, an access hole, and a pinch of peat/spagnum moss works great for the hide. An article on the importance of security and hides for feeding success can be read at this link. By the time you're breeding I assume you're already quite familiar with the temperature/humidity requirements but skadaddle on down to the care page if ya need a refresher. 

Step 2) leave 'em tf alone until after their first shed. NO handling! NO sexing! No disturbances of any kind. You wait until after the feeding for such things. Security is so important that a lot of the other tricks people may suggest are typically reiterations of replicating a dark secure environment... i.e. the ones like, I put her in a lunch bag stapled shut and when I came back she ate! If she didn't have anywhere in her enclosure to feel safe enough to do it, then of course she would eat once you provided it. See? Point is, don't skip this step. Hides are important, safety is important. Security matters a LOT. Do I dare say more than prey choice? Yeah I do. 

We need to establish security and safety for feeding, its a very vulnerable thing! They're tiny and you're an enormous predator for all they know. Imagine a 200 foot alien ripping the roof off your house and grabbing you 150 feet into the air, messing with your butt and preventing your escape. how safe would you feel? Would your first impression of the alien be positive? Fear is the opposite of security. So do what you can to keep them feeling as safe as possible until after the first successful meal- and that includes leaving you out of the equation- just for now. As a bonus, babies allowed to establish confidence before handling also handle better when it comes time. Less fear= less panic induced flights or defensive biting etc.  Win and win.

Step 3) after the shed, its time for the first offering. Drop in a Red hot pinky mouse, whole, live, must be under 2 grams. Close it up. No dangle jangle or any nonsense. Drop it in, back away. You want them to think they just stumbled across it naturally. (again don't be the alien!)

Its important that it's under 2g. That's a "red hot"- under 2g. (Click here for more info on prey sizing) As close to 0.5g as possible would be ideal. House snakes truly can eat enormous meals for their size, but you aren't doing yourself any favors trying to get a 5 gram snake to eat a 3 gram pinky for its very first meal.... that would take some confidence they may just not have yet. So weigh it if you must, aim for as small as possible. Try no more often than once every 5 days. Once a week is a typical schedule.

Doing these three steps right works about 90% of the time....

but alas, not every time...

So after 3 attempts with a no go, the next try would be a pithing of a red hot. Take a tiny pin and poke it into the pinky brain to get some of the goo out. Gross and hurts the soul a little? Yes. Effective? Yes.

If you can't source red hots that small, take what you can acquire live, prekill by pith, then cut it in half lengthwise and try that. feed as fresh from the kill as possible.

Still no go? buy them frozen that small (rodentpro sells red hots as XS pinky mice), and try that. Yeah, sometimes some animals do prefer to start on frozen thawed. these tend to be real nervous babies. My guess is the 'dead' smell is reassuring that there wont be a struggle. Its rare but it happens! 

For the real fussy Mcfussertons:

Now its been over a month with no food. you've tried what you can with straight mice and you're at "pulling the hair out" level. Oh friend, I have been there. 

Its time to consider scenting. either make or buy some gecko juice. I recommend using house gecko. Anole isn't native it doesn't work anywhere near as well. Make sure the juice, or the prey item before it was juiced, was frozen for at least 72 hours before offering. this is because those lizards are going to be wild caught and you'll want to freeze them ahead of time to make those parasites incapable/less able to infect the snake. You wouldn't want a captive born hatchling being parasitized so young. They just aren't big enough to support the additional drain on the system.

I say consider because you shouldn't go straight to gecko juice aka " the black crack". The conversion process off gecko can be tough. They can get stuck on it- and it's not cheap. So tread here only when you've tried everything else without scenting. Still it works, especially for babies of wild caught mothers (captive hatched) because the lineage hasn't been bred towards mouse prey preference for generations like some lines of captive born (yes mine included of course). So the reason it works so well is because Gecko is the native prey and captive hatched babies haven't yet been 'wired' for rodents per se. So gecko juice is a great tool for captive hatched babies that may turn a nose at rodents. Nod Nod. 

To use you simply rinse off your mouse in tepid water, place in a small condiment cup (a tablespoon works too!) and baste a little in the gecko juice. give it like a 10 minute bath in the secret sauce and drop it in. 

Important tip!

​Give it a few weeks before you get anxious. If it's not visibly lost body condition it's ok! Bigger babies will typically take longer before their first meal. This is simply because it takes them longer to absorb all the nutrients from their egg yolk- well- because they have more of it. They just aren't hungry yet. 

The trick is to not panic with the troublesome starters. Security is the name of the game. If you've got the environment right, it likely just needs some time. So if you start doing nonsense like shoving tails down them they're not only not getting enough nutrition (tails are not nutritionally complete like while prey) you're also begging them to be nervous eaters ( association is food=not safe), plus be terrified of humans (humans=not safe). Oof. Hard lessons learned. It works in other species, but man house snakes are smart folks. they'll remember. clever girls. 

If the body condition is terrible and you truly do get desperate carnivore care can be purchased off Amazon. Mix 1 tbsp powder with water, load into a syringe equipped with a 2mm ball tip gavage needle. Administer 0.5cc a week. Carnivore care is meal replacement for critically ill reptiles, nutritionally dense and complete. Its not perfect, it won't grow them, but it works to give you some time. I've personally used it to gain a whole 4 months before the fussy butt finally got the idea that surviving is maybe a cool idea and started to eat on their own. Aye ye ye! This was a truly tiny 3gram snake who was in all other ways developmentally normal, but needed some time to get big enough to take down whole prey. I only mention this to illustrate how well it does work. I would not recommend that level of a stretch under other circumstances. which brings me to....

Lastly, sometimes we have to accept that failure to thrive is real. 

The truth is, you truly can not save them all. At some point as a breeder you do need to assess if this animal will have a good quality of life, and if not euthanasia needs to be considered. It hurts, especially when you've put a lot of effort and hope into the little guy, but being forced to eat their entire life is not a good quality of life for a snake. A lot of these guys that just truly seem to be fighting the idea of eating have internal issues that you may not be seeing on the outside. They may be suffering, and keeping them going through artificial means is not humane. Letting them go does NOT mean you failed. It means you came to conclusion that their peace was more important than your feelings. That takes real strength and maturity. It hurts, but when we venture to bring life into the world, we must also embrace that the opposite side of that coin is death. Still, may the odds of that coin toss be ever in your favor friend. :)

I hope this helps. If you have any questions feel free to reach out.