Mystery has been solved as to the Mystery Male from Clutch #6.
Apparently, the Lemon Blast was the proud poppa, but so far all I see are Pinstripes. I didn't hit on any Pastels from what I could see either. We shall see the final count of what is coming out this clutch in the next few days.
And there was a question posed as to how I feed all the babies that hatch out over the year.
With patience, hunny.
I have a system (index cards) to keep track of who ate what when, and with everyone in a tub on their own after they shed, its actually pretty easy.
Yes, I have many babies after the hatching is done, but it is no big deal!
Just having plenty of rat fuzzies is the biggest pain in the butt...
But when there is a baby that doesn't eat well, however, there are three things that I do.
1) Make sure they have plenty of water. Babies can and will dehydrate VERY easily.
(This I do for any baby even if they eat fine, but this is a good point of information)
2) Crumple up paper in the tub to give them more security. This is key if they are feeling stressed out. Give them a few days of crumpled bliss before trying food again.
3) Keep offering food every 2-3 days if they are not eating, 4-5 if they are.
That's what I do!
I hope that helps those of you with babies that have some issues.
So there are clutches we are waiting on, including the Special female, and the Pewter... This is taking a long time, but apparently these females want to go LATE with the late crowd. I'm thinking another few weeks for the rest of the clutches, and then we can stop waiting. We shall see...
Have a fantastic day, my friends.
How long does it take you to get most babies to take their first meal, then?
ReplyDeleteIt takes a week or more. They have the yolk they have absorbed, so there is no urgent need for them to eat immediately out of the egg. The longest I have had has been a month or so.
ReplyDeleteI guess I was meaning how long it takes more than anything else. (I have 50 billion spreadsheets for keeping track of all my animals, hee hee.) Sometimes, getting them to eat the first time, I have to stand there with a fuzzy, waiting for the snake to get over its fear of the scary white thing and realize it's food. :P While it's rather amusing, it makes feeding take quite a long time.
ReplyDeleteBut once they've taken their first meal, it becomes trivial: If they're still on live, I just chuck a live in there and they go to town; if I've managed to get them to f/t, then I just dangle a f/t in there, and they take it.
Usually, anyway. I have one baby who is being a pill. They hatched June 8, and she's only eaten once (June 23). She still has good muscle tone, so I'm not too worried yet...but still.... Silly girl.
I like the crumpled paper advice! I've actually done that for a few of my younger snakes that were obviously panicking in their quarantine tank, and couldn't seem to find their hides. Crumpled paper, threw a towel over the tank, anything to give them some security so they'd STOP FREAKING OUT.
ReplyDelete