Force Feeding a Giant

Samantha, the Bronx Zoo's reticulated python, may "only" have been 21 feet when they got her, but she was able to tack on another 5 feet in the decade that she lived at the zoo.  She fared far better than many of the giant snakes collected from the wild over the years for zoos and collectors, which is why she was able to live (and grow) so much longer.  The early days of the keeping giant snakes in our reptile collections, around the turn of the last century when Roosevelt first issued his reward, were sagas of failure.

Big snakes were collected from the wild, but typically failed to survive for very long in many cases.  There are a few reasons why.  Difficulty in keeping snakes and other reptiles sufficiently warm with the technology of the era was part of the challenge.  I'd read of several zoos that gave their snakes blankets trying to keep them warm.  In some cases, the snakes ate the blankets.

A more recurring challenge was getting the snakes to eat.

A big snake can go for a long time - over a year, in some cases - without a meal.  This is true in the zoo as in the wild.  They do need to eat at some point, however, and early zoos had a very difficult time getting their snakes eating.  I suspect that this was in part due to the fact that the snakes weren't sufficiently warm and didn't have good lighting, which depressed their appetites.  Part was that the exhibits of the day were pretty barren, so a snake, feeling exposed and unable to hide, would be reluctant to eat (a feeding snake is a vulnerable snake, as its only defensive mechanism is plugged with food for a period of time while it slowly swallows).  Part was also that the snakes were adults taken from the wild, set in their ways and having a harder time adjusting to a zoo based diet.  In many zoos, the keeper superstition arose that the snakes would only eat live prey - but the problem is that if you put a live prey animal in with a snake, and the snake isn't hungry, sometimes the prey animal will actually harm the snake (especially if it's a bitey rodent).  

So, many zoos resorted to the nuclear option - force feeding.  This had the disadvantage of being dangerous not only to the snakes, but, in the case of larger or venomous species, the keepers.

Consider this account from Peter Brazaitis in his memoir of the Bronx Zoo, You Belong In A Zoo!

" We once had a seventeen-foot-long anaconda that refused to feed on anything we offered it... it held to its fast for nearly a year.  While it was a giant in length, its emaciated body was little more than skin and bones.  Finally we decided that the poor beast had to be force-fed, something we were were reluctant to do for fear of damaging the snake's mouth in the process and, because of its already debilitated state, having it develop an infection.  The snake was sure not to cooperate."

With reinforcements from other departments, keepers managed to grab the thin but still-mighty snake and stretch it out.  Brazaitis was given the job of inserting the food into the snake's mouth with a pair of forceps.

"As I pressed the dead rat to the snake's lips, the snake suddenly opened its jaws wide and lunged forward, carrying with it the army of surprised keepers who held on to its body.  In and down went the rat, followed by the forceps and y hand.  The jaws closed, imbedding dozens of its three-quarter-inch-long teeth into the top and bottom of my hand."

Indian rock python "Diablo" being fed with a sausage stuffer at the San Diego Zoo (San Diego Union-Tribune)

By the time Brazaitis retrieved his hand from the snake's mouth, he described it as looking like a cancelled check, full of little punched holes.   None of my force-feed experiences have been this dramatic, but most have equally been fiascos.

Zoos tried all sorts of tricks to improve force-feeding, from tying several prey items in a row to induce one "mega feed" to even using sausage stuffers to feed the snakes held by keepers.  While force-feeding is still used on occasion with particularly difficult feeders, it's generally only an emergency occurrence (and the increasing availability of captive-bred snakes means that more snakes are accustomed to life in a zoo and feed better as a result).

What's really made the difference for most animals, I suspect, is habitats that better resemble the wild, both in terms of furnishings and climatic variables, as well as keeper patience and empathy - trying to figure out what will make a snake want to eat on its own, rather than seeing a recalcitrant snake as a challenge to be beaten.