Feeding Tips Needed

Anyone with some ideas / tips / tricks to get hatchling cobras (naja siamensis ) to feed, would be greatly appriciated.
Hatch date was 6-27-08 has has refused to eat so far, he's starting to look a bit on the thin side now.

Thanks in advance.

some of our cobra need to be force feed for 2 - 3 times before they start feeding voluntarily. if you leave a pinky inside the box with the cobra and she is not eating, try to raise the temperature for a while a bit (that sometimes helps a lot).

i would force feed as the baby has not been feed for more than 4 weeks... dont waist no time no longer, my 5 cents.

cheers
Mario

Hi Jim
I think you've been trying all the common and wellknown tricks like
- changing food items and size of food items, dead/alive feeding, slicing heads.
- "playing" with temperature, changing feeding times, teasing.
- using frog or lizard odors.

one of my favourite tricks, if nothing works, is group feeding.
Put them all together in one small plastic box,and give'm a couple of minutes time to get nervous. Ususally they suddenly start to attack each other, they spread their necks, stand up, hiss and try to bite. Usually, the mouth stays closed and no real bites occur.
Put some living mice in, as big/old as possible (the more they move, the better the reaction of the snakes will be)
If some of the mice get bitten and killed, youl'll be on the winners side, having at least one snake starting to eat,usually followed by others.
We all know about the jealousy of food in cobras, and we can use it to start them feeding.
Of course, You have to watch them and to remove each specimen after eating.
This method sounds very strange, as almost everybody's keeping juvenile cobras single.
It's been working in the past with some difficult groups of Naja nivea and Naja naja.
Most of'em started to eat this way, just a few refused and had to be force fed.
As force feeding juvenile cobras isn't a pleasure, neither for the snakes nor for You, every self eating specimen will be a benefit.
Just try it, be careful and watch them, and get surprised.
Keep us updated, please.
Cheers
Peter

Well...I finally had to force feed the little guy !
it was my first time force feeding a venomous snake....wasn't as bad as I thought it would be !
Hopefully I wont have to do that to many more times
(glad it was a cobra and not a rattlesnake)

Hi Jim. Peter's tip on group feeding is a good one. I tried it by accident many years ago in the 1970's with a litter of Pseudechis porphyriacus. As a group they seemed to bite anything that moved, you need to keep a good eye on them though as they can wound one another. A friend of mine has bred naja siamensis a few times and he usually smeers the pinky with ox blood? but there are always some that need to be force fed.
I like your comment about rattlers, I have had to force feed a couple of crotalus mitchelii, small snake long teeth, big fingers Shocked

anyway good look with the little guys.
Paul

I do not know much about Naja but maybe this helps.

I have a friend who breeds N. melanoleuca and when babies do not feed on their own he soaks the mouse in chicken egg yolk and apparently it never fails, they always eat by themselves.
Since hearing this it has been confirmed by a few others who also tried it.

Perhaps this is well known, I do now know.

Hmm

Pinks with egg....fried, sounds even delicious to me! That have to work Wink

just kidding

Seems to be a really good idea, it's worth a try (both, egg and group)

Greetings,

Markus

» feeding tips
» neonate feeding tips
» Need some Tips
» Urget help needed
» Venomous photography tips