Help with force feeding

[Cwcuz2112]

Thanks for the detailed response . what y'all are saying makes sense . Its difficult to tell with certain animals if its sickness ,natural behavior or other stresses that are causing it not too eat . I have a few ball pythons that will only eat when the moon aligns with Jupiter , mars is on the eastern summit and its the third Tuesday of the 29 day of February . I feed them the biggest prey item they can handle or as many small ones as they will eat it's something you expect with the species .I also have a few ball that want to do nothing but eat . I've always heard that cranwells have a poor feeding responses . I don't have any that do but I have read it in several different places . So it seemed rational to me to do what i do with anything else that doesn't want to eat on a regular schedule . Stuff it full when it will eat and leave it alone the rest of the time . Everybody has different ways of doing things and y'alls way is probably better .

[GrifTheGreat]

Thanks for the detailed response . what y'all are saying makes sense . Its difficult to tell with certain animals if its sickness ,natural behavior or other stresses that are causing it not too eat . I have a few ball pythons that will only eat when the moon aligns with Jupiter , mars is on the eastern summit and its the third Tuesday of the 29 day of February . I feed them the biggest prey item they can handle or as many small ones as they will eat it's something you expect with the species .I also have a few ball that want to do nothing but eat . I've always heard that cranwells have a poor feeding responses . I don't have any that do but I have read it in several different places . So it seemed rational to me to do what i do with anything else that doesn't want to eat on a regular schedule . Stuff it full when it will eat and leave it alone the rest of the time . Everybody has different ways of doing things and y'alls way is probably better .

Feeding response has nothing really to do with the species. More so it differes between individual among each species. Most of the time its a stereotype.

I believe she is having trouble with an Ornate. Just a guess on my part though since she had one sick a few weeks ago.

[Lija]

Emily, try to get some royal canin critical care food or that Oxbow Animal Health | Carnivore Care
the last one is excellent, it is like reptiboost and critical care in one.

both available through vet, but somebody said it is also sold elsewhere in US.

i just add to what Grif said about big prey and sick frog, sometimes even nighcrawlers are hard to digest and you need to be very careful force feeding as well and not to give too much food at once. it is like when you are sick yourself, you don't really want to eat at all, and even mentioning greasy food makes you feel even more sick. try to feed a lot and you will have frog vomiting and that leads to stomach problems. basically you are complicating situation even more.
that is how body controls itself, it uses energy to fight whatever it is fighting and not much "energy" is left to digest simply speaking, thus feeding small amounts of highly digested food is a key.

[DVirginiana]

Also, it seems like usually an animal that is in ideal conditions and not sick will not hunger strike to the point of being emaciated. If they begin losing weight, that's when I start looking for something that may be wrong.

[emandkel]

Thanks to all who have responded. I didn't think about the portion size but want him to get enough nutrition to feel like eating again and to gain back his lost weight. Tonight he was much more cooperative about opening his mouth.

He is an albino cranwelli. He's not been a big eater and has gone days between feeding many times. He DID eat the feeding after I switched to coco fiber -- he jumped at the first worm and I think I got him to eat a 2nd one. That was first time he had eaten for at least a couple of weeks. He didn't want to eat again since then -- gave him a few days before I started force feeding him.

My little ornate that was sick -- after the first dose of Panacur, he's eaten well every feeding. He's fine.

[Cwcuz2112]

Glad to hear things may be looking up