The neonate checkered I brought back from AZ finally took a pinkie. It's been eating fish like crazy, but pinkies have been a hard sell. Rubbing the pinkies on my pet pacific treefrog has worked great for me with my common garter and my northern CA western terrestrial. But, the checkered didn't even show interest in treefrog scented. Over the weeks I've tried scenting a live pinkie, a washed live pinkie, a dead washed pinkie with treefrog. I've tried scenting with fish, I've tried braining (works great for the local western terrestrials), I've tried braining and scenting.
Today, I made the water dish really shallow and put in a couple of fish to get the snake in feeding mode, I then added a small pinkie. The snake grabbed the pinkie while trying to catch the fish, but as soon as the pinkie moved the snake seemed to go OMG this isn't a fish and dropped it. I replaced the live pinkie with a dead one, and when I returned to check on them, the bowl was empty and the garter had a big lump
Now all I've got to do is wean it onto unscented
-Alice