Most of these comments are people that know nothing about snake's. Somebody really thought that 1. the casing was to small 2. That force feeding seems cruel (he's actually saving the animals life) 3.That feeding rats to a snake is wrong. What would you prefer them to eat, zucchini? I also saw a comment about him seemingly being a non experienced breeder, when I can quite obviously tell the man knows what he is doing.
true ! :) I chuckled at "zucchini"... that'd be a sight :)) I imagined peopled buying shirts of the sort "my snake's a vegan". And yes, you can see he knows what he's doing. Especially with force feeding the snake. Getting it over with clean and smooth and as quickly as possible whilst not messing around. It's not a comfortable thing to do but you can't mess around doing it either if you absolutely have to.
Great video - I've referred back to this video many times to help me with hatchlings. But the part about assist feeding an entire pinkie still eludes me. First of all, the hatchlings I have that are not eating are MUCH smaller than yours! Also, when I assist feed them they are squirming around like crazy and not nearly as calm as yours was. I can get them to eat a pinkie head, but not the whole pinkie. I'll keep trying, but getting an t=entire pinkie down their throat is not nearly as easy as you've made it look in my case...
Eddie, not all hatchlings are the same, some are calm, others nervous and aggressive, whilst other will do their best to regurgitate. I think if yours take pinkie heads, it's a matter of time (and perseverance) and they will take the whole body.
+Green Python try warming up the food maybe not in microwave or anything just warm water snakes uses heat sensor to detect food source so maybe that would help
+Kevin Rincon the caretaker of these snakes is extremely gentle with the fragile animals, and only puts the force that is necessary. Really difficult what he's doing at the end there, but he makes it look easy
And this is the part I really hate about keeping snakes....feeding time, especially when you wind up having to dance the pinkie around to get an interest, lol. I didn't buy my feeders - we ranched our own, so there was an element of familiarity there, which made it a little hard for me. A PETA member once expressed outrage that I fed the snake "my little friends", and could I not train it to be a vegetarian...after spitting out the drink I had just choked on, I explained that I never fed the snake my friends, just the ones that pissed me off...she had absolutely no sense of humor ;)
無言 欣 Skull.B I kid you not, she was serious! Somebody dragged me down to some local fund raiser for PETA - back then, I always had my rat - Charlie Parker - riding on my shoulder, and she came over and we started chatting...until she found out about my snakes, lol...if only Charlie had pee'd on her - but no, he was too much of a gentleman ;)
😂 Right after you got the pinky into the snakes mouth during the force feeding segment it looked like he/she had a grin. I don't know why I find that funny.
Snakes have always been my favorite animal aside from cats, because they're fun to hold, they act funny, and they're cute. But, this video.. when you say to use the "pinky" i thought you meant the pinky FINGER and not the mouse head, because it looks like the snake is getting kisses, :P
Really great video, love seeing snakes get proper care. Too many people buy them for the novelty of just having a snake and kill them due to inproper husbandry and lack of research.
dudelivestrong u shouldn't do that because those mice have to go through hell to get to a pet store or wherever u get them so for them to go through all of that and expect a nice home only to be treated like trash is horrible
@@dudelivestrong I'd recommend against feeding alive unless there's some certain circumstances like your snakes used to eating live since they were a baby or a juvenile. Otherwise you should probably do frozen because live can harm your snake if they choose not to eat. But that was three years ago so I'm gonna leave this here for anyone who needs to know it
A Random Person it doesn't hurt. the snake has little holes on the lower jaw so it can breath while it has a rat, frog. etc. plus the snake can stretch out its jaws so it can eat things much bigger then itself. therefore it would not hurt the snake.
yeah, it really sucks when they die in front of your eyes instead of frozen to death in the back of a pet store, it's way easier to deny reality that way am I right?
I find that snakes need a sense of freedom. If Waylon Slithers (Yes. Really.) is going to spend the rest of his life in a box then he at least deserves to be treated to a live rat or mouse every now and then. Otherwise I'm just taking away the last thing he could hope for while in the box. It's not that I like live feeding, I just like my snake to be a happy boy.
I don't know if this will make any of you feel better or worse, but pinkies have hard lives even without snakes. I once had a mouse give birth to about 5 of them. I handled them all, then put them back with their mother. Not one to take care of someone else's babies, she bit off the tops of each of their heads and ate out their little brains. Happy Monday!
They are so sweet. I'm dying at 2:02 when he's just poking the snake over and over. I also like how it's called "the pinkie" because to me it sounds nicer than dead newborn mouse. Is that like a term in the field? Haha. I would love raising little baby snakes.
+FatPanda It's pretty often not known why they won't eat. a few species have this commonly occur in the new born snakes and I personally think they just don't know what they're doing
+Cocoplops it is more like that they are too young to develop behavior in the "box" theirs instincts are programmed to eat in wild enviroment, when they are in some box, they can malfunction these instincts. Sorry for my english but i think u get the point
+Taumantis The exact definition of instinct contradict that.. You dont rationalize or consciously think about instinct. It just happens automatically, naturally and without your control.
OK, I admit I'm somewhat squeamish about feeding baby rats/mice (alive or dead) to snake hatchlings ... BUT these snakes, young as they are, are utterly beautiful. Plus there is certainly no shortage of rats or mice on the planet!!! A VERY interesting video.
Great film, you show some techniques it took me time and experimentation to work out. I appreciate you gentle handling during the force feeding, that takes experience and patience. It's odd to see all the kids who were not aware that snakes eat and eat other animals -- whole. The only way snakes can survive is to eat what they are designed to eat. They can not switch and become VEGAN, they would just starve to death, slowly. Baby snakes need to eat animals in proportion to their own size. In nature they can not do that at times, just like in nature, lots of animals may starve to death: this is the role that animal keepers take on, caring for their animal charges and providing for their needs. It's pretty stupid to criticize a keeper for feeding snakes with feeder rodents: these were specifically bred and produced for this purpose. What do you think is in dog or cat food? Dead animals and filler. Frequently, the animal protein in dog / cat / other carnivorous animal feed is from animals raised and slaughtered for human consumption. Dog food often contains off-cuts, or portions of cattle pigs chickens etc that were raised and slaughtered for human consumption but the portions are not normally consumed by humans for one reason or another such as the part of the animal is not eaten in a given culture, it may come from an animal whose condition was not approved for human consumption, and so on. To the point though: captive raised baby snakes need to eat baby rodents, lizards, frogs, small fish, bats, birds, etc, just like in nature. doh.
I looked after a friends snake when they were away on holiday. I had to feed her "pinkies" like those....I,d never done it before and she frightened the life out of me!!! Never seen anything move so fast
+Zod Iac Breast alone does not contain much besides protein. Snakes (well most anyway) really need organ meats and bones for all their mineral needs. This means whole prey is the best course of action. Plus for many snakes rodents are their main natural prey anyway. Mice and rats are also the cheapest fairly nutritionally complete animals to breed generally speaking (why do you think mice are used for lab experiments) so it's a pretty obvious choice for most. Another option is quall.
Really excellent and educational video. I am waiting my first clutch to hatch now and your video makes me feel a bit more comfortable in dealing with the neonates. Thanks!
Agreed with Joshua T. They may need to be assisted as hatchlings too as they can be a pain to get to eat, they should eventually start taking it on their own when they're older.
Just saying in your comment it didnt seem like a joke because there was no sign to you using sarcasm. Everyone knows this snake doesnt chew so what are you trying to achive? Likes? Doesnt seem like anyone gives a damn shit about this comment
By your logic we shouldn't have a comments system because they achieve nothing. "No jokes allowed , unless you specifically point out obvious sarcasm so that no one feels like an idiot when taking them seriously", said Kelvin.
Cake Cawley oh you wanna talk about logic? Alright so tell how can i tell that someone is always joking on the internet? Because we cant see physical emotions. Thats exactly why this is happening. Tbh i just thought you were dumb as fuck and still do. By your logic you're telling me its my fault for taking you seriously and also i hate to talk about the topic logic. Because people are dragging in words that i've never said. Just like you did "you didnt use a joke you said got a lazy snake? Just shove the dinner down its throat he doesnt even chew" ok thats okay but when i took you seriously. Your comment was so ignorant it almost made me puke.
i like that they named the baby rat pinky like linky and the brain cause pinky was the stupid one and makes me not think of it as a baby rat but a piece of food hahahha
Actually yes, GTP's are nocturnally and seem to be more apt to eat in the late afternoon/evening time, not saying they wont eat during the day, because all mine will, but if you have a trouble feeder or something. Feeding at night can help.
I like this video not because I have any affection at all towards snakes, rather the opposite, but I do find humor in watching this guy sit there and poke the fuck out of these snakes with dead baby mice. 5/7 would recommend
Wow the snakes kept missing! My little corn snake, once she spots the food, will strike and almost NEVER miss. She's like a beautiful red-and-gold bullet. :D
Super video, very informative and very well explained with your techniques. Thank you very much for making this for other GTP enthusiasts. Some people just don't understand what it takes to establish this species to be good eaters. Keep up the excellent work!
2 years later, honestly when they are born the first thing they see is a person going into the incubator and they generally have no fear of people after that as long as they have good experiences, they generally become quite calm the snakes I have hatched are so amazingly calm and chill
What are you using for the perches in the small tubs? I've been trying to find out what it is but no luck. It's a very easy perch system and I would like to implement it. Any help is appreciated!
Thank you very much for this video! I'm looking into become a hobby breeder and the forced/assist feeding bit was very educational. I never want to have to resort to that, but it's comforting that in case the situation arises, I know what to do.
If you want to breed you have to prepare yourself for the need ot have to force feed because you will run into it. The assist feeding is a bit easier to do but still a pain. you also have to get ready for a worse case scenario. Any breeder will tell you there are just those special cases where despite all your best efforts the snake may die. Most of that is usually caused by some problem like the snake not fully absorbing the yolk of the egg before coming out or a parasite.
evilcowboy Yep, ran into it too, with a fish eater not wanting to eat anything. Force feeding is scary, and it my case it did help. Healthy 5 year old snake now. ^^
+Natsuo Yoji Some species it just doesn't work for generally though. Garters will generally crash if you force feed them. Of course the are an ovoviviparous snake that sometimes will produce very large litters of toothpick bobble heads (presumably as a survival mechanism of putting out pure numbers).....it's almost invariable when you get a 30+ litter that some are going to be failure to thrive no matter what you do, they just lost the genetic lottery.
