Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It is that time of the year. I bred some generic alterna phases, and was hoping for a 4 headed albino, but no luck. I did however get some pretty cool hatchlings.

DAD:

MOM:

Babies:
Keeper:

Keeper:

Keeper:

Definately keeping this one:

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South Texas Herps

Another generic pairing

Sire:

Dam:

Babies:

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South Texas Herps

So I now have 20 alterna babies, and 3 more form a castle mtn pair, and 9 more from another generic pairing yet to come. I have raised alterna babies in the past. I mostly force fed mouse tails until the neonate would take scented or brained or some kind of pinkie while cupped. My question is this: this year I have made contact with a commercial collector, who has a large supply of frozen earless lizards. He used to supply Dan Johnson, before he stopped breeding alterna. Would it be better to feed FT earless lizards for the first 4-6 meals, instead of force feeding a mouse tail? If so how many meals, on average should I expect to have to feed lizards, before they take scented pinkies?

Michael Leidner
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South Texas Herps

Mike, I've had the best luck using fence lizards or earless lizards. I don't feed the snake the lizard but I dry out a thawed lizard by putting it out in the sun. When it dries out I chop it up into a finest particles I can and store it in a deli container. When I feed the baby alterna a pinkie I just shake and bake the pinkie the the dust and it eventually works in most cases. The dried matter does smell bad though. lol. Good luck.
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Steve W.

Mike,

I've had pretty good success using just the skin. I skin the lizard and use small pieces of the skin on a pinkys head. The inside of the skin is very sticky so it sticks right to pinky very easily. I like to if I can start off with a live pinky dip him in the lizard innards and then put the skin on his head or just put the skin on the pinkys head. The movement from the pinky helps the feeding responds too. Once they've taken a pinky that way it usually pretty easy to transition them to f/t pinkys.

BTW thats a nice bunch of alterna there. I like the eighth one down in the first bunch.
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Vichris

Vichris Variables

Mike, #4 looks pretty good too with the 2 bowties! Congrats!
Todd Hughes

Nice group!

Hey coach, what about ypur schedule for your trip down west?

Steve

My work schedule has not been posted yet. It will be the third and fourth weeks of August.