Reptile & Amphibian Forums

there are many ways to get neonate alterna to eat, depending on to whom you listen. I've had very good luck over the years and I do it in a way many don't think will work; I wonder if they still feel the same if they have tried it.

Most people wait until after the first shed to try feeding.when the eggs start pipping I remove them from the incubation box and put in a box with paper towel on the bottom. When a clutch starts crawling from the eggs I go the the garage, find a litter of newborn pinkies and thrown them in with the hatching snakes. As an example, I once put 7 pinkies in with 6 day old hatchlings and all the pinkies disappeared. I once had an alterna reach out from the egg and eat a pinky WHILE IT WAS STILL IN THE EGG!!!

Have to figure they come out of the egg with a built in attitude. Take advantage of it. Works for me, will it work for you?

I tried this with hatchling subocs once - bad ideal. Subocs rarely fail to feed anyway and I found that feeding them in a group turned them into very nasty striking fiends.

ps
If they don't feed, you have lost nothing. If they do you are well ahead of the game.
J

i have heard many feeding tricks, but I have never heard of feeding right out of the egg. Of course i am always willing to give anything a try when it comes to getting alterna started...

I will let you know how it goes for me in a few weeks when my first clutch startes to pop...

~ Mike Russo

I try to feed them unscented Ft pinks right off the bat. I had a shoe box of 9 hatchlings last summer. right off the first shed, I placed a frozen thawed pink in with the group. one ate. I took him out and tryed again with no takers. I seperated them out and a couple ate unscented over the next couple weeks. I got them all converted quickly by using a tiny, and I stress tiny patch of shed skin from a side blotch pet lizard. The key is to let their tongue smell just the shed skin and to dangle it just out of reach so the are enticed to strike. at most it took like 10 scented feedings to get them over, but once they start to strike by site, or as a learned behavior, they are fine to eat frozen thawed. I have tryed pinky pumps, and paper bags and deli cups with mixed results.

also as a note, this was with my generics, I had a little more difficulty with my Junos, although two went for uncented after a week or two out of the egg, others were not so easy.

Jim