My injured snake..

[guidofatherof5]

You may need to increase the amount to force fed food or increase the frequency.
Glad you updated the thread.
Best of luck.

[ConcinusMan]

If you're going to resort to force feeding, I would give the snake pinky mice, not worms. Mice are more dense in nutrients. If you're only feeding the snake worms, they need a lot of them and very often.

[Hankj]

Yes, I didn't give up on the thread or on the snake, was just giving her a lot of alone time to see if that would get her to eat.

If I do give her a pinky, do I give her a whole one? Also, do I give her a live one, pre killed one, or is a frozen one fine?

[ConcinusMan]

Frozen (thawed thoroughly) or pre killed is fine. There's really no reason to feed them live. You'll have to use your own judgement as to your first question. I don't really know what an appropriate sized meal would be for your snake but from the pictures it seems like a pretty small snake. When you force feed you can't really try to put something down their throat that would require them to unhinge their jaw. If it doesn't fit easily, then don't try to force it if it seems too big.

You might want to try the head end of an extra small pinky and maybe lubricate it lightly with worm slime or oil (fat) from fish. Otherwise, if the snake is too small, then tube feeding diced pinkies is another option.

You should be prepared for the possibility that the snake has already began "sliding down a slope" from which it cannot recover. His injuries look pretty serious. Generally force feeding should only be done temporarily and if the snake doesn't start eating on it's own, it might not not ever do so.

Your efforts are commendable but at some point you may need to make a decision to continue or humanely euthanize the snake. A life of stress and force feeding isn't much of a life. The decision is yours however. I'm not suggesting what you should or shouldn't do in that matter.

[Hankj]

I would think a pinky would be too large. Especially since I've only done this once, with a worm.

Is salmon nutritionally more dense then an earthworm? I can easily cut salmon to an appropriate size. I will acquire something useful for tube feeding shortly.

[kibakiba]

I think it would depend. I gutload my worms with a lot things I would thing are good for the garters. It's more calcium rich the way I do it, but if they aren't gutloaded, then I would assume the fish is more dense. Most garters do seem to like/take worms better (in my experience) You can use a knife and cut an earthworm into small chunks if needed.

[Hankj]

I ended up tearing the worm into three pieces and dusting the last chunk with some repticalcium.

Can you share with me what you gutload your earthworms with, please?

[Hankj]

We were force feeding her again today and she swallowed most of the worm on her own this time! I just had to get her started and she did most of the work.

[ConcinusMan]

I ended up tearing the worm into three pieces and dusting the last chunk with some repticalcium.

Can you share with me what you gutload your earthworms with, please?

Believe it or not, just good ol' rich composted leaf litter with a little bone meal added provides a lot of nutrition and is a good way to gut load earth worms. Just the castings (poop) inside the worms will have many times the amount of calcium found in the soil, and it's in an easily absorbed form too.

[Hankj]

Just a few minutes ago I took her out of the cage and put her in a little plastic shoe box so I could clean all her shed skin out of the tank. We had not force/assist fed her since two Thursdays ago. I put a earthworm in there with her just to give it a try and after I cleaned up the tank there was no worm and a big lump in her belly