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Believe me, I feel your pain! After 5 seasons of breeding Rhinos, I've tried a lot of things to get them to feed. Nothing works every time, and sometimes nothing works. But there are a lot of tricks.
It sounds like you are on the right track, simply be patient. They can go much longer without food than they look and if you need to go down the force-feeding road (and sometime you just have to) mouse tails are easier to feed them than pinky heads.
I've had success pushing a wet mouse tail halfway down their throat and letting them finish the rest of it, while having a pinkie ready to go so while they are willingly eating the tail, they end up eating the pinkie as well. I call it "train feeding" there are youTube videos illustrating the idea.
Don't underestimate the power of water in getting a juvenile rhino to eat. I hope one day to learn about their natural history enough to understand their relationship with water and aquatic prey, but there's a reason they take to fish and tadpoles much more aggressively than mammalian prey. I like to wait until I find the snake in the water bowl for this technique. Then offer it a pinky mouse on tongs/tweezers/hemostats/whatever and wiggle it around like a fish. I start by wiggling it just in the water, not touching the snake. Then I'll gently tap the snake and judge by its response how to proceed. If the snake leaves the water, generally the gig is up and you may as well try another day. But if you can illicit a strike, you probably have found the chink in its armor that will turn it into a confident feeder.
I have a video I made of me doing this very thing. [url=https://youtu.be/zj4yUUZXNIg[/URL]
I've also found placing a pinky in the water with a couple fish or tadpoles may result in some feeding behavior, either eating the fish or the pinky or everything. Beyond that, just placing a pinky in the water and then pouring a small stream of water in the water bowl around it can really get them fired up and ready to hunt too. (The key I believe is finding them in their water bowl already, as opposed to putting them in the bowl.)
Patience, patience, patience. And several days between feeding trials. You'll get there.
Sincerely,
Terry Burwell
TB Snakes
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