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Update for feeding #5. I have good news and bad news (as always). The bad news first:
All three of the non-feeders have declined to eat their meals again. This is the 5th straight refusal, and at 7 weeks old, I am starting to get concerned. I have decided that I will attempt acquire some live anoles, which can be placed into the screen cages with them and hopefully will induce feeding. My hope is that once they start feeding, they will easily switch over to chick thighs or something else that is more readily available. This is somewhat frustrating, but since I was originally concerned that I would have to do this with the majority (if not the entirety) of the clutch, I feel it's best to count blessing and just be happy that I only have three troublemakers.
Now, on to the good news. Firstly, 24 out of the 25 good eaters ate this week, and the one that declined to eat was NOT one of the three that declined last week, so all three of the babies who skipped last week are back on feed. As for the one who skipped this week, I believe the refusal stems from a change that I made on Tuesday. This particular snake made a complete mess of his tub by spilling water all over the bedding, which was starting to turn moldy. Because of this, I switched him over to a new, clean tub on Tuesday. My best guess is that the stress of the move is what put him off feed. These guys are proving themselves to be quite temperamental, but at the same time, quite resilient. I plan to make more of an effort to do anything that might contribute to the stress of the babies as far away from feeding days as possible, as even a space of a few days does not appear to be enough for them to fully recover their confidence. I am optimistic that this guy will be back on feed next week.
Now for the REALLY good news. As an experiment, I placed a pinky mouse in with two random babies at the same time as I placed the chick thigh. One of these two snakes turned out to be the one who did not eat at all, so it's hard to say what would have happened if he had been hungry. The other, however, ate both food items. When I noticed this (hours later), I made eight more pinkies and placed them with eight more babies (all of whom had already consumed their thigh, presumably a few hours before). None of the eight additionals ate the pinky, but I believe the fact that they had already consumed their food significantly before being offered the pinky may have contributed to the failure rate.
Next week, I intend to feed a larger group a thigh and a pinky simultaneously, to see if I can drive up the numbers. The plan here is to take advantage of the feed response induced by the chick to encourage them to eat the pinky as well, thus getting them potentially missing nutrition, and also causing them to associate the smell and taste of the pinky with food. Over time, I hope to gradually move them on to a diet of primarily pinky mice, which will make them more likely to succeed in their new homes (and make me more likely to succeed at selling them, haha).
I will be attempting this only with the animals that I intend to sell, as there is no real benefit to me to switch my holdbacks onto pinkies at this time. The babies are growing well, and will be ready for quail chicks soon enough, so I will try to convert my holdbacks to quail chicks and my non-holdbacks to pinkies. If I am successful, people who purchase babies will be able to feed pinkies, and I will have the luxury of keeping my animals on birds.
One more note- many of these guys are developing at a remarkable rate. They are much larger and are starting to lose their juvenile, dark red color. I will try to get some updated pictures of some of the recent sheds for you guys in the next couple of days, but I am trying to balance things out with regard to stressing the babies, so I will be choosing the time frame carefully.
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