Posted by:
zach_whitman
at Mon May 16 00:41:15 2011 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by zach_whitman ]
Yeah, tracking everyone was hard and I have just had to take a deep breath and let go of my compulsion to monitor/control everything.
What I did was make a card for each individual and I found a specific marking on the head of each one to tell them apart. I rarely used these cards. I then made another card for the group to record the dates of feedings and when I found sheds. I would feed by just tossing in about twice as many food items as there were snakes. I tended to feed smaller sized food items, so that they could get them down quickly minimizing the chances of another snake coming up and trying to take it from them. I would spray the cage after I dropped food. They quickly learned to come out looking for food when I sprayed. This prevented one of them from waking up and eating everything in sight while the others slept. Every once in a while I would find them all the day after feeding and make sure everyone had a lump showing that they got at least one food item. I also weighed them regularly and made sure that no one was falling behind (except for the ones that brumated obviously)
The very first few feedings I supervised carefully and several times watched as snakes grabbed the same food item. Each time hey fought it out on their own and within a few weeks they had learned to leave each other alone and go find an easier meal. The learning that I have witnessed with these groups has been really impressive. Now I just toss in handfuls of fuzzies every 3ish days and walk away.
Another thing I learned... some snakes will eat multiple prey items every single time, and others, even if given ample opportunity will always choose to just eat one. The ones that would eat only one, would often eat again the next day, whereas those that gorged themselves would go sleep it off and not eat for several days.
[ Show Entire Thread ]
|