Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Over the past 27 years, we have experienced numerous gray-banded kingsnake eggs going full term, only to have the offspring die full-term in the shell. In reading this forum and others, I have noticed people mentioning a similar problem with their alterna.

This past summer, while visiting my friend, Norm Nunley, he told me that while he was working at a zoo, they would routinely cover their alterna eggs with damp, not wet, paper towels one week before the eggs were due to hatch. Always game for new strategies to get gray-banded kingsnake eggs to hatch, I tried this technique.

Well, four clutches later….I can say……it WORKS! It is not perfect, but my hatching percentages are remarkably higher. Last year, I hatched one alterna egg from my colony. That is correct….I had over 25 eggs…..15 were fertile……12 full term babies dead in the shell…one hatched....it was UGLY! This year, we had 36 eggs…..30 of which were fertile….we hatched out 16 babies so far with another 7 eggs to go. The thing that makes this very compelling is the fact that two of the females produced fertile eggs last year (an animal from Sanderson and an animal from Highway 277) in which none of the eggs hatched. This year, this simple change in husbandry resulted in both these animals having a total of 10 babies hatching. This is by no means a scientific study but I should point out that the substrate used to incubate the eggs was the same in both years, the incubator and incubating temperature was the same in both years, the animals being bred were the same each year. Everything was identical between the two years EXCEPT for the simple strategy of placing two damp paper towels on the eggs seven to ten days before they were due to hatch. The one problem we are still experiencing is with our Christmas Mountain snakes. We had two clutches of fertile eggs with only one hatching. No babies, however, died full term in the shell (at least so far with one more clutch from Langtry to go….)

As you can see from the image below, we still have some eggs die....but so far we have had zero eggs develop into full-term dead babies. If you are experiencing problems with your alterna eggs dying full term in the shell…….give this strategy a try….who knows, it just might work for you!

a few weeks ago i posted while i was still angry about not cutting into my eggs after i had just found 5 dead in the eggs...

This season I had 1 clutch of 17.. 3 turned brown very late into incubation (Day 50), 10 hatched out on day 56 and 4 died in the eggs.. i had another clutch of 14, 4 turned brown midway through incubation 5 hatched out and 5 died in the egg..

I have one more alterna clutch in the incubator that are due to hatch on 9/20, I am going to try the wet paper towel trick and see how it goes... thanks for the tip, ill keep you posted..

~ Mike Russo

Excellent note G-merk. I'll try it out next year for sure. I had 4 full term die in the eggs this year out of 3 clutches of a total of 14 eggs.

Good info, thanks!

Brad

Gerry,

I did not do anything scientific with this clutch, infact they took 67 days to hatch, but if you look in the picture you might notice some small scraps of papertowel. days prior to the snakes hatching I ripped a small piece of damp paper towel and carefully placed one on each egg. I was thinking this might help to create a litte weak spot in the shell, but not enough moisture to cause a problem.

I have learned high moisture content during incubation will usually lead to fully formed dead in the egg alterna, so I think basically that you need to keep the eggs in pearlite, or vermiculite just barely moist for 60 days and I think the papertowel trick may help, but probably will not hurt at 60 or so days.

I may be thinking too much, do you think it is possible that alterna eggs just may have extra tough shells - naturally - so as to withstand a soil condition in the (limestone or whatever else) area that they are laid in the wild. Any thoughts on that?

Well, as always, I spoke too soon! Got back home tonight and found the last animal that pipped the morning died full-term in the shell after making a couple of slices. The good news is I have three beautiful babies from a 15 year old female that has not produced a baby in three years. Only one baby dying full term for the year so far is a lot better than the percentages for the last few years. I still think Norm is on to something!

OK. What the hell. I lost all four of my Sanderson eggs 2 days ago. They were overdue and I sliced them open. All but one were full term. They were all dead as a door nail and as I said, all were fully developed but one. I am glad I am not the only one having this problem. They supposedly have bad years for wine,.............maybe this is a bad year for hatching snakes, or certain kinds anyway. I will definitely keep this advice handy for next year. Thanks for sharing Gerald.

Wayne

6 langtry
8 277
8 juno
.....they all pupped and hatched...i kept them on spagot moss..they got dry towards the end..also i don't use an incubator, just room temp with the fluctuations.....anyway..i also supplement the adults diet with ca...yo jimmy d gimme a call

The successful hatching of alterna eggs may also be a function of where we live....I live at 3000 feet in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. By this time of year, we have extremely low humidity.....what speaks to me about this strategy is last year I had five clutches of alterna eggs....only one baby hatched and I had numerous dead full-term in the shell. This year, I have had four out of five clutches hatch with only one full-term dead baby.....anyway, thanks a lot to everyone for sharing.....I know it is tough to discuss.....G

G,
Just like many things in life, there is probably more than one factor at play. The Barkers and I were researching this in the past, and at least one additional factor that comes into play is an increased need for oxegen towards the end of incubation. I don't have my notes in front of me, but if I recall the wet paper towel at the zoo was a direct response to the increased "air" circulation at the end of incubation to keep the eggs from drying out.

Forky

Hi Gerry,

I too have experienced snakes dying full term in the egg, historically. At one point, I would always slit all remaining eggs in a clutch after the first one slit on it's own. I would also sometimes use expected hatch date and slit all eggs in a clutch before any had slit on their own. I had very good results with this technique.

Later I came to the conclusion that the fundamental cause of this syndrome is nutritional deficiency in the mother. At one point many years back, I decided to see what happened when I fed my snakes lizards instead of mice. This was an expensive proposition, but with the high prices of offspring back then, I thought I could justify it. To my delight, my first year of production (1996) after changing the feed resulted in 50 black gap offspring out of only 3 females. This included a two year old snake double clutching for 20 offspring. Not only was the level of production high, but the offspring had no problem getting out of the eggs. And the offspring looked healthier too. More robust and with a smaller obsorbed yoke. I attribute this to the egg having a higher protein and mineral content and lower fat content. Since that initial year of dramatically improved success, I never switched back to mice. Another very curious phenomenon occurred with the diet change -- male fertility improved substantially. I used to have horrible problems with males shooting blanks. Although, some males still had problems, most didn't. Of course all of this info was considered a trade secret back when I was in the reptile breeding business.

Another curious data point regarding egg pipping is that wild caught females generally have few problems with their eggs the first couple of years in captivity. But then the problems start showing up after a couple years of the standard domestic diet.

How hard was it to get the hatchlings on mice? Same as before or more difficult?

Thanks,

Steven

I didn't notice any difference and can't think of why there would be. I have noticed certain bloodlines consistently produce babies that are more finicky than others. Genetics is a big factor with feeding response I think.

Dan, Do you think Hueco is one of those localities that is tough to get on Mice? Lance caught that female several weeks ago and she has only taken ond pinky scented like a gecko. I need to get some different lizards.

She is a gorgeous animal but I just want her to be healthy.

Thanks so much for your info. I really miss seeing your old site updates.

Steven Owens

The Heuco I found last year has at best only taken scented mice....this year he has not even taken a lizard...he still has good body weight, but I have to put the pink mouse in his mouth and he takes it the rest of the way. I know you addressed this to Dan and he has a lot more experience with this population than I do...just my two cents.....G

Gerry,
John Fraser has told me that you were having difficulty with your Hueco male feeding. Well here is my 2 cents worth.
We caught a really nice alterna morph on Langtry dirt back in Sept. l986. I got to keep her for the first year and then John would get her for a year [alternate alterna! clever, huh]. Anyways I tried all the scenting techniques to get this girl to eat without success. After 11 months without food I was beside myself about what to do. I didn't have access to Crevice Spiny's and back then didn't know about med geckos. What we do have in Kansas however are alot of Great Plains Skinks. I decided "what the heck" so I put a live 8" long GP Skink in with her. Her feeding response was immediate. She grapped it, constricted it and swallowed it! I figured this skink weighed as much or more than an adult mouse. I fed her 3 more lg skinks over the course of the next 4 weeks and she eagerly took each one. I handed her over to John after the year was up and he did ultimately switch her over to mice but I felt if I would of kept her I could of continued to feed her skinks and she would of done just fine.
So, you might try a GP Skink on your male. By the way, last Aug 30, 2005 when John and I were in the Huecos hunting [just days before you scored your male]I found a GP Skink out on the shoulder of the highway under those street lights, so that tells me the skinks are there and I'll bet at some time in their natural environment alterna come across and eat the skinks.
Sorry so long, just my 2 cents worth.
BA

From my experience and talking to the Brown brothers, Hueco alterna are on average relatively easy to get established to feeding in captivity. More so than Brewster/Presidio stuff. Of my four wildcaughts, three were voracious feeders and one finicky -- keep in mind they were fed lizards. Yes, one was relatively finicky even on lizards. He would eat, but only in small quantities. His offspring were consistently harder to get started than those from the other male (talking scented pinkies here). Looks like you probably got unlucky with the feeding response of your snake; however, I've seen snakes that eventually came around and ate well. It's hard to tell what ultimately will happen.

Dan....that is truly amazing. We have often thought of feeding lizards to our adults and actually do so in very limited amounts. The really cool thing about your post is the increase in male fertility ... a chronic problem in our collection. Thanks for advice...G

allright...whose gonna do the nutritional comparison between lizard species and mice????????

Yeah, who would ever guess that nutrition would be the cause of male fertility problems? Actually, I started out only feeding lizards to the females. With the exception of my first Hueco male. He was so special that I wanted to treat him as best as possible, so fed him lizards. He was raised from 15" to breeding size on lizards. To my surprise he was loaded with sperm at his first breeding. After that I switched my other males over.

where does one get 1000 lizards?????

Bob, are we looking to get the old sperm count up? Is it ok with the miss's? lol
-----
Steve W.

Send me an message, and Ill give you the contact info for the guy Dan used to get lizards from. He is located here in Kingsville.
-----
South Texas Herps

and Lizards are the perfect vehicle to deliver it, they are little D3 cookies.

I was able obtain a high level of success after struggling several years in a row with a dietary supplement we got from Europe. The main ingredient was D3, among other things. Nutracal might be a good substitute but I don't know that for sure.

I know some people swear by D3. For a while prior to using lizards, I supplemented with D. Eventually many of my adults developed the common skin-pitting condition, which is widely seen in alterna. Dave Doherty took a skin biopsy and sent it to Dr. Fred Frye. Fred determined that the skin had bone forming in it likely due to hypervitaminosis-D. I stopped supplementing after that. One significant advantage of lizards is that they are much lower in fat content. This means the females can eat more without getting obese. That in turn means they have more reserves of all sorts of nutrients to build good quality eggs. I'm guessing that many different nutrients are needed to build good eggs.

there is more to it. I've seen the same thing with Repti-cal users. I'm telling you this stuff in the tube was the goods. I've yet to see it in the USA, and it to this day is one of Trempers Trade Secrets so I won't call it by name - it works on alterna too w/o the nasty side effects.

FYI it is possible to OD on D3 - which is one of the causes of those nasty skin pits - over absorbtion of calcium.

i ve never seen these "pits"....any pics???

We reported the use of supplements such as calcium/Vitamin d-3 in Reptiles Magazine 1996....we noticed dramatic changes in our egg production after one season of using RepCal....but we have also noticed an increase in fat deposits on our females.....so we stopped using a lot of supplements...we still provide females with two doses a month...just by placing the mice in a container in the snake cage that has some fresh supplement in it....

G,
Talk to your buddy Tremper. I know he'll share the stuff with you, otherwise I'll leave him out in west Texas this coming weekend

You still have to be careful what you feed your snakes. If you feed a lot of fuzzies (i.e. fat food) you get fat snakes. D3 among other things helps with absorbtion of calcium, if there's no calcium to absorb it won't do much good - I always fed the largest mouse the snake could swallow w/o problems afterwards - not too many fuzzies.

Lizards may be just the ticket for some. However, not "any" lizard will do. Dan didn't expand on which species he was feeding. but I would stick to diurnal species sympatric with alterna like cophosaurus, sceloperus, usosaurus, uta, and such. It would be interesting to use a control group and feed them only nocturnal Lizards, but it may not make any difference because even nocturnal lizards can have those important additives found in diurnal Lizards by eating diurnally active insects like grasshoppers and such.

If you breed Chameleons you can visualize these sequences on a rapid scale over generations. Set up one group on Pet store crickets and the other group on fresh grasshoppers harvested from the field. Prepare to be amazed.

Thanks Joe, I do not use the RepCal any more as well....I believe there would be an amazing difference between feeding lizards grasshoppers that have been in UV and feeding lizards crix that have been in, well, buckets with no UV....Living in California, we offer our alterna a Uta on occasion.....or even a small sceloporus....going to Texas on our annual hunt, I cannot bring myself to catch an earless sand lizard to feed to an alterna....anyway, great advice and I am definitely going to rethink some of the feeding protocol we have been following....G

For the adult alterna, I used mostly marbled whiptails and to a lesser extent a zebratailed lizards, cophosaurus and sceloporus. For the smaller snakes, I used mostly keeled earless lizards. My main sources of the lizards were Doc Gaylord in El Paso and Mike Ivy in Kingsville.

How about good ol' Texas spotted whiptails? I know I've seen them running cuts in the daytime and they are way easier to obtain down in south Texas. This is all good stuff!
Todd Hughes

In addition to the full-term dead-in-the-egg animals everyone's referring to, there are other congenital problems that arise due to a lab mouse diet. I've seen an increase in hydrocephaly, abnormal scalation (an occasional divided ventral or undivided subcaudal) and kinking. I went through a pretty exhaustive trial with 5 or 6 different vitamin supplements but met with the same scale pitting, skin-thickening results Dan mentioned in addition to renal carcinomas that developed as a result of unintentional overdosing (very easy to do). I started feeding lizards to a portion of my collection a number of years ago. After noticing an increase in fertility, fecundity, hatch rates, and overall appearance (even in very long term WC animals) I switched my entire collection to lizards. The congenital defects have disappeared and I only see hydrocephaly now in eggs that are incubated too moist (I do not use vermiculite or perlite anymore). I have access to a large colony of Deer mice so I'll occasionally feed my adults one of those, but for the most part they get only lizards. The logistics of feeding lizards is a bit more complicated that raising mice or ordering them from a breeder but the results are well worth it. My hatchlings are bigger and more vigorous and feeding trials are a breeze. I fed this years' babies for the first time the other night and they all, without exception, took a frozen/thawed baby Uta from my fingertips.

Thanks to all who replied...just a couple of questions....do you freeze the lizards before you feed them off?....I am concerned about introducing parasites to my colony....I know a lot of people out there believe that a small parasite/protozoan load would not be a problem as alterna probably have some of these internal organisms in the wild; but, to play devil's advocate, there is always the problem of increased stress to these animals in captive conditions resulting in the parasites/protozoans taking over. I have ran fecals on most of my wild-caught snakes and found very little in the way of parasites and protozoans. I have found that protozoans are more common than nematodes, at least in my experience. I really appreciate all the information flowing here....I am definitely going to re-think how I run my colony...thanks again, G

.

I only feed frozen/thawed. On occasion I've offered fresh hatchling Uta to hatchling alterna, but that's the only circumstance. You might get away with feeding live adult Uta to alterna in captivity, but other actively foraging lizards with larger homeranges could pose problems due to their larger parasite burdens. I'd stay away from parthenogenic whiptails entirely. I helped a friend with a study on the red queen hypothesis and used sexually and asexually reproducing whiptails as test subjects. While they all had parasites, the asexual whiptails were not much more than hosts with legs! I freeze everything just as a precaution.

That answered my question on whiptails, thanks! You guys are doing a really great service here and I for one thank you all! I may join this club yet, dangit! I am anxious to start contributing and not just taking from here.
Todd Hughes

I too have noted the deformities you mentioned. Roughly 40% - 50% of my Hwy. 277's from cb adults had those problems. Strangly all Langtry/Lozier area snakes I have produced whether the adults were cb or wc have had excellent fertility and extremely low dead/deformed babies. My wc 277 female bred to both wc and cb males has had excellent results as well.
Last year I was able to reduce deformities/dead in egg from my cb 277's down to about 20% by manually fanning oxygen to the eggs once or twice a week and incubating them drier.

how long does a frozen lizard retain enough calories/vitamens etc....to be a viable food item?????..........does someone here own stock in a lizard supplier????

>>>any pics?
Bob, sorry I don't have any photos, but the snakes remind me of "saw scaled vipers" in a sick sorta way.

>>>>allright...whose gonna do the nutritional comparison between lizard species and mice????????

We really do need to figure what the deal is, but I've got some ideas. I can tell you that what the prey item eats is probably just as important (more so?) than what that prey item is. Mice raised on dog food are horrible. Mice raised on lab blocks are only slightly better.

>>how long does a frozen lizard retain enough calories/vitamens etc....to be a viable food item?????..........does someone here own stock in a lizard supplier????

I don't know. Can you imagine - during the height of Dan Johnson's collection and feeding how many Lizards he was going through per month? Can you imagine how many hundreds of dollars per month it must of cost? Of course he justified it by increased production, and healthier babies and adults.

It just illustrates how much further we can take nutrition / husbandry, even after all these years. It can be done without lizards because I've done it. I went from a scenario of low fertility, low percentage hatch rate, kinked babies - to 100% fertility, 95 % hatch, and 100% healthy babies three years in row with the same set of breeders.

During the height of my breeding career, I spent on the order of $4000-$5000 per year on lizards. It may seem like an insane thing to have done, but believe it or not, it was indeed a good investment. I produced a lot of valuable babies in that time.
Do the economics.

One trend I've noticed is that breeders that use live mice tend to have better results than breeders that use frozen. When I used mice, they were usually frozen. For a couple years I did breed mice and recall that my results were better during that time. But raising mice is such a pain!

As far as keeping the lizards, I would freeze them in water to keep them from getting freezer burn. They would last a long time this way.

I seriously doubt the lizard population needs to worry. It's too expensive or too much effort for very many people to use them in large numbers.

and for you it was a cost of doing business, and you still made money, but you are right, Cringe!

I am cringing as well.....that is unbelievable.....but, like Joe, I know it was a great investment....I have seen your beautiful babies in at least ten people's collection and many of your offspring are depicted in the alterna book....

with that said. Any hope's of starting up again Dan? Maybe on a smaller scale?
-----
Steve W.

......another thought....what 's gonna happen to the lizard populations?????.....now that everyone seems to be ready to jump the rodent ship and hop on the lizard band wagon......will the price of mice drop???......mouse breeders will go belly up and become dependent on state funds and free cheese....lizard price will skyrocket...people will get out of ball pythons and hondos and get into the lizard supply buisness... due to the wind fall profits......we better back off and think about the world wide implications here....both ecological and financial......

If you could only live in the South-east, just outside of town. . . I have all the lizards I want/need in my own backyard all year round!!! And I don't even live in Florida, lol! I have a garage that lots of anoles gather around, during November - March. It does snow here (in SE. NC), occasinally (once or twice a year, at best) But the anoles always come out to bask during warm days. Anoles are also quick to reproduce and replace themselves, and at an average life span of two years it seems to justify that.

Forgot to mention, it DOES help to live at the edge of a swamp/woods, where lizards & snakes abound . . .

Zee

-----
"I am an expert on everything, but I know so little and have so much to learn!" -Carsten "Zee" Zoldy-

Hey Zee, it's Patton from the king site.
So your into Greybands too. Good to know.
Say hello to the sandbox for me, and be safe!
-Phil

shhhhhhhh! I was headed out west to start collecting stock for my new "Lizards "R" Us" store.

Folks need to think about it a little. I'd try a varied diet first. Add a few Lizards to the diet and pay close attention to what the mice are eating before you feed them to the snakes. Try feeding the mice some of the same things the Lizards are eating. Mice love insects. Get them off the dog food!

You were on the right track when you said we need to figure out what the nutritional difference is between mice and lizards! Then go back to what I said, how about what the prey items eat

Yes, I agree
AND there's abonus to feeding mice insects every now & then (especially if you have kids): It can be fun to watch a mouse tear up an insect (kinda like a tiger on a rabbit).

But seriously, I have always believed that whatever the prey item eats DOES MATTER!!!

Zee
-----
"I am an expert on everything, but I know so little and have so much to learn!" -Carsten "Zee" Zoldy-

I'm gonna feed my mice lizards!
Todd Hughes

This is all fantastic info! Those of us who regularly hunt the cuts can easily gather many sleeping sceloporus from the crevices as a by-product of our normal hunting activities. And don't forget to walk the pavement on the way back to your vehicle-the last two seasons I've noticed many earless lizards have taken to sleeping in slight depressions in the middle of the pavement (mostly in Black Gap)!

I do wonder-is it really necessary to switch over the ENTIRE diet to lizards, or can you get the same results by just adding a good percentage of lizards to the food supply? I say this because I'm aware that studies show that wild alterna do prey on mammals, which make up a decent proportion of their diet.....

Brad Chambers

I think everyone takes a couple lizards, no big deal.

If everyone takes every lizard they see pretty soon there are going to be depleted lizard populations in certain areas, and guess what areas? The areas where everyone hunts alterna! If there aren't any lizards on the cuts, there will be less alterna on those same cuts.

This is why I must stress that it _can_ be done w/o Lizards. Folks must think outside the box. Go back to what I said about "it's what you feed the prey item that matters, not the prey item itself".

No offense to those who do, and did feed all lizards all the time, but that is not a long term solution, but rather IMO that's taking the easy way out. Again that's just my opinion.

If folks want to collect every lizard they see everywhere, that's their business, but I encourage folks to take it a step further and find a viable solution other than "all lizards all the time".

That's an excellent point, Joe-I posted a thought perhaps best kept to myself lol....But your comment again brings to mind my question-perhaps using lizards as one portion (1/3, 1/2?)of a varied diet might achieve the same or nearly the same result. And, I might add, much more economically.

At any rate, I for one will seek any saurian snacks out on the plains....

Brad Chambers

PS-good luck to you and Tremp out west this weekend!

we will have fun, if nothing else!

Yes I think varied diet is the key, and in addition we work on finding out how to raise mice that will do the trick by themselves. I'm certain that it can be done.

Best
Joe

I still feed some mice to my animals, but the mice I feed are from a captive colony of deer mice and have diets that closely simulate that of wild deer mice. They're fed a number of insect types as well as lean grains. In the past, the alterna that I fed a diet comprised solely of those mice still exhibited many of the problems everyone here has mentioned with dog food-fed lab mice. The problems were less severe, but still apparent. I still have a group af animals that all displayed congenital defects as hatchlings and the control (mouse-fed) group has a different texture and appearance to their skin. I'm guessing that when they breed for the first time next season that there will be issues with their young.

The lizards that I use for feed come from an area that is and has been steadily developed over the last 5 years. The areas I first collected are now covered by tract housing. I STILL feel strange about taking lizards from the fringes of those developed areas, but I guess in my mind they seem to provide a better service in a snake gut than under a concrete foundation. Considering that alterna are primarilly lizard feeders, I'm not sure how feeding them lizards is anything other than ideal husbandry. From what I've seen thus far, making mice into the crude analytical equivalent of lizards is like wishing apples into oranges. I'd love to hear some ideas about making an alterna-friendly rodent and if you can pry the secret D3 gel from Tremper I'll give it a whirl in my mouse-feeder group and see what happens.

we can not guarantee with certainty exactly what the problem(s) are (in many cases). We can clearly see the manifestations though.

You say I'm wishing apples to oranges. I'm confident from my own positive experience that we _can_ solve the problem.

I knew I'd step on your toes despite my "disclaimers" - "IMO" "No offense" etc.

I KNOW we can do better, and besides, I did say "all lizards all the time" which according to you does not apply to you

Forky

Joe, you didn't step on my toes at all LOL. If my post sounded defensive I certainly didn't mean for it to. There may very well be a relatively viable alternative to lizards out there, but every attempt I've made has met with some dissapointment. For me, it all started with supplements, leaner breeds of mice, leaner feed for mice, insects for mice... and has gradually evolved into a mound of evidence that keeps pointing where I really don't want it to... more lizards. If you've got some ideas I'd love to hear them and give them a whirl. Try as I might I've thus far been unable to nutritionally make mice into lizards. I'm a little frustrated and I need some help. Ideas anyone?

let's start with what insects you are feeding your mice and where are you getting them? What else exactly are you feeding your mice? And what is the ratio of lizards / mice that you feel works for you?

After that let's take a good hard look at what a Lizard has that mice don't inherently.

I don't think "ALL" the problems reported are "all" due to exactly the same cause. When I found _my_ solution I quit investigating because what I had worked until I quit breeding snakes.

Let's take it from another approach. Why do mice work so well for so many other "lizard" eaters. Why does it seem that alterna are the only snakes we have "these" problems with?
These questions need to be answered, and all I was saying in a round about way is that feeding all lizards all the time doesn't do any good for a good percentage of folks where that is simply not an option.

Lizards will always be a _part_ of the equation for alterna bredders, always. There's no better way to start a finicky hatchling or a stubborn adult.

I don't think our answers will come overnight, unless I can get more of the magic tube of D3 and by the case, but I can tell you it wasn't easy to get when I had it and each tube was like a little gold bar. I will look into it, believe it or not I've gotten several e-mails about it since posting it.

Perhaps blending frozen lizards with very lean beef and injecting the miture into dead mice would work and make the lizards go farther. Alternatively, if graybands are active for say 8 months out of the year maybe feeding exclusively frozen lizards for the month before and about two months after hibernation would be enough. I think many animals have seasonal prey preferences so that might work. And as Frank Retes commonly preaches perhaps providing larger cages with a broader range of temps an humidity would allow the snakes more choices and help them process all foods better as well as allow excercise.

Overfeeding rodents can be a problem too. Just take a look at any wc alterna and what do you see? You see a relatively thin sleek looking snake. Then look at captive snakes and most of the time you'll see a much more rounder looking snake. Lab mice of course have a much higher fat content than lizards or wild mice. Too many people try to raise up their babies too fast in order to breed them. In reality it takes a minimum of 3-4 years for the snake to be sexually mature enough and big enough to breed safely. When I was breeding mice a long time ago I had access to 50lb. bags of parrot food that was coated with a bird multivitamin. This is what I fed my mice and the mice never got that fat look that most lab mice get towards their back legs. The parrot food fed mice had a red skin tone to them as opposed to the pink color of the rodent chow mice. I actually stopped feeding the mice the parrot food because the snakes never got heavy from those mice. Just a thought.
-----
Steve W.

I've successfully hatched many, many different ssp. lampropeltis eggs in my 20 years of herping, but I've always provided the eggs with extra oxygen, about 10 days prior to hatching. I have NEVER used an incubator (even with (expensive) Indigo eggs) and always had excellent results. Also, as we all know, a variety in diet IS good, even in humans,lol. I do feed my snakes occasional small snakes & lizards.

When it comes to nutrients in alternas, why not feed mice? BUT: Raise a few mice yourself, that YOU feed in a different way. Feed those mice less fatty foods, include insects in their diets and dried veggies(they love to eat insects), add some nutrients and see what happens. Of course you will probably have slightly less offspring, but the nutritional content of those specially raised mice may make a difference. The only difference would be hair vs. scales . . . ? just a thought ? . . .

Zee

-----
"I am an expert on everything, but I know so little and have so much to learn!" -Carsten "Zee" Zoldy-

Zee,
You are a very smart man! I'm not just saying that because we posted the exact same thing

Thanks.
I do have to admit that in the past, I've lost my share of baby snakes due to inexperience and lack of knowledge. But I have learned a lot from literature, every one on here, and mostly through my own many experiences and (unfortunate) failures . . .

Zee
-----
"I am an expert on everything, but I know so little and have so much to learn!" -Carsten "Zee" Zoldy-

up some limestone and useing it as substate for incubating?Maybe there is something in the limestone that helps prevent this.
L8r Shannon