Couple baby corn feeding questions

[Cirith Ungol]

I have 19 baby corns, hatched in my own incubator. They all hatched arround the 4th of juli. Yesterday I made the first serious feeding attempt. (All corns have had their first shed a "long" time ago.)

In order to find out the pecky eaters amongst the happy eaters I just started off putting several snakes into small containers with a pinky and then put the containers into the wardrobe for darkness.

I did go at this twice with first 4, then 3 snakes. Each time I left them in there for 6 hours. I had one successful pre-killed pinky feeding in both attempts.

I'm mighty happy about that and hope the others (or at least 50%) will come arround doing the smart thing too and eat those pre-killed pinkies without me having to resort to violence.

To the questions:
a). Those two corns which ate yesterday, are they in the clear? Will they now eat pre-killed pinkies without complaining or might they refuse them again in the future?

b). I'd be happy for any hints or tricks which help getting the corns to feed on their own and...

c). If (or better, WHEN) force-feeding will be nessessary what method do you use/should I use? (I've asked this some people in PM's but I'm always happy about more input.)

Cirith

 

[Cirith Ungol]

A little update... Now 15 out of the 18 have readily taken the dead pinkies. 3 are still not realizing that they have food in their little containers. I've also punctured the pinkies heads and tried to squeeze out some of the stuff that's in there but for now the corns havn't responded.

But all in all I'm very happy, 15 out of 18 is a lot more than I expected!

 

[Cirith Ungol]

16 of 18 that ate by themselves. I tried force feeding one of the remaning corns but I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to squeeze the snakes neck hard enough in order to keep it in place for the feeding attempt. I guess I'm a bad daddy.

The two now left are the first born (and I hope that means something, that perhaps it is some kinda champ that will come arround to the idea of eating by himself/herself). The other one tried to eat a few times but let go of the pinky when it couldn't lift it (as it was sticking to the bottom of the box because of the moisture). I hope that one too will give it another try.

I would be very releaved if I didn't need to force-feed. Obviously force-feeding is better than letting them starve to death, but it just feels kinda horrible.