Assist Feeding Venomous Snakes
What do you do when your snake simply will not eat? Should your snake not eat and you have exhausted all avenues of known techniques, you may have to resort to assist feeding. Some species of wild caught Death adders for example are notoriously hard to get to voluntary feed on rodents. Before proceeding to pick up the snake that you intend to assist feed, you must make sure that you have every thing you need at hand and this includes your pressure bandage. Besides being bitten, there is nothing worse that holding on to a venomous snake and then realizing that you are not yet ready or have to fetch some thing. As you want this procedure to be as smooth as possible it is best advised to have your food item e.g. rodent lightly smeared in cod liver oil to assist the food items path of travel down its esophagus. It is not necessary to coat the entire animal only its head which will obviously be the first part to travel down the snake mouth. If you have never had to assist feed and this is your first attempt then it is strongly advised that your food item being used is smaller than what the snake would normally be comfortable eating on its own. You can work up to larger items after you gain some experience. When picking up the venomous snake to assist feed, many experienced keepers prefer to pin down the snakes head with an appropriate jigger. A jigger can be anything from a professionally bought one or simply your mother's sponge mop if appropriate. Basically as long as the implement to be used achieves the action of holding down the snake head comfortably and securely then it will probably be okay. Undertaking such a task can be preformed quickly and easily with experience, however this task should never be taken lightly as you are dealing with reptiles that could potentially end your life or cause severe illness should there be an accident. With this in mind I recommend that you take your time and take nothing for granted. Complacency is the cause of most bites. And remember, if the snake had no original intention of biting you, it certainly wants to now that you have grabbed or pinned down its head. While there is merit in using a jigger or implement to achieve this, when assist feeding small elapids like Death adders, I prefer using my own hand as the jigger. I like this method simply because I can more accurately determine how hard I am grasping the snake.
The technique that I use is to fully cover my pinning hand with a cloth or pillow slip just like you would wear a glove. I make sure however that I always have lose folds of material in between the snakes head and my finger tips or hands ( see diagram 1 ).	Click on the thumb for a larger view.
Should I become careless or slow and resulting in the snake to strike, then there is little chance of receiving a bite other than to the loose bag. I would not be so sure that this would necessarily be true if applying this technique using exotic vipers etc that really do have extraordinary long fangs compared our Australian elapids.   After I have the snake securely pinned with the loose bag (see diagram 2), I then proceed to place my index finger of my free hand firmly on top of the snake head in a manner that has the underneath finger print pad laying flat on the parietal scale area between the snakes eyes and then apply enough downward pressure to hold down its head securely enough to be able to release my other hand (see diagram 3).
Now with the hand that I have remaining in the bag, I simply release my grip and pull my hand out of the bag and proceed to remove the bag away from the snakes head (see diagram 4).
With my hand now free of the bag, I can now easily get a fresh good firm comfortable grip around the snakes head and when I have done so, release and with draw my index finger of my other hand from the snake head (see diagram 5).
You have to take care while holding Death adders by the head with your fingers in this way as they are rather flexible with their jaws and have a nasty knack of twisting their fangs towards them. Always remember if you intend on following this technique, that the hand in the bag that you first use to secure the snake head will be the hand that you finish up with holding its head. If you intend using your right hand to place the food item into the snake's mouth then you must grab the snake with your left hand.   Once you are happily holding your snake you can now begin to assist fed it. While I normally do not have any difficulty in getting a snake to open its mouth, this is not always the case.  Some people often have difficulty getting their snake to open its mouth and this can take a bit of persistence and patience. I normally hold the head of the prey to be fed right up to the snake's nose and try to pry the mouth open by exerting pressure up wards under its rostral area. With Death adders I find this is all they need and they are usually more than pleased to immediately open their mouths to bite the item that they are so annoyed with. If the snake is being stubborn, you should try to spread its jaws apart from the side with the prey item. If you are still unsuccessful, then you need to manually open the snake mouth with an object that is not going to break any teeth or cause unnecessary injury to the snake.
I personally use a children's plastic tweezers out of a play doctors  kit with perfect for this as it's a strong enough plastic to pry the snake jaws apart but is still soft and reasonably flexible. Once you have the snake's mouth open then you must immediately place the food inside and as far back as possible (see diagram 6).
If the food item is reasonably small then it should quite easy to gently push the item down the snakes esophagus. I find that if you slowly twirl the food item while you are doing this, it will go down a lot easier. You may have to assist the movement of the prey with what ever is suitable and using some sort of implement helps keeps the ends of your fingers a distance from the fangs. If you can find something like a piece of plastic rod that has a reasonable diameter then that would be perfect. I have found that if you use an object that is to thin and does not have a big enough surface area then you run the risk of puncturing the prey item and this can be rather messy. When with drawing the object used you must be careful that the snake teeth don't get caught up on it which is very likely. I find that it is better to with draw the rod by going slightly towards the back of the snake (with the angle of its teeth) and then to bring it out from the side. Often it is not necessary to manipulate the food down and many snakes that have received the food half way down their throat will continue to do consume it by them selves. I however do not often give them the opportunity to refuse, and I do it just to make sure that I don't have to repeat the saga if they should spit it back out.
You should be careful when manipulating a food item all the way to the snakes' stomach and if there is any resistance you must not continue. I find it quite easy to use your thumb (see diagram 7), or with bigger snakes two fingers to gently apply light pressure behind the prey item. The prey item should just slowly move down the esophagus with out any drama.
After your snake is happily back in it enclosure, you should try not disturb it further or handle it until you are satisfied that it will no longer regurgitate it food. After assist feeding Death adders is recommended that when placing the snake back into its enclosure that you flick the head out of your grip as away of releasing it. This is a tip that I learnt from the late Graeme Gow who told me that as Death adders can strike so quickly they can bite you in mid air as you release your grip. Who am I to doubt the man who has received more Death adder bites than any one else on this planet.