Posted by:
vegasbilly
at Thu Jul 8 18:54:45 2010 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by vegasbilly ]
Myself and a few other guys are trying a chick-only diet for our Gonyosoma and my Boiga collection. Both arguably feed more on an avian diet in the wild. Both experience high full-term mortality rates in eggs wherein fully formed embryos fail to exit the egg for some reason.
In both species eggs from gravid wc imports do not manifest this problem. When acclimated and fed a primarily rodent diet the situation reoccurs.
We are hypothesizing that rodents, with their higher bone density, result in a higher calcium intake for the females which may end up resulting in egg walls that are too thick for the babies to break through. Manual pipping is often necessary for the babies to successfully emerge.
Purely an unscientific theory based upon a few guys "shooting the bull" so-to-speak. All my female Boiga and Gonyosoma are currently being fed a 90% chick/quail diet and I'm anxious to see if this has any beneficial effects on future clutch-success rates.
Bill
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RE: chicks as feeders - vegasbilly, Thu Jul 8 18:54:45 2010