Reptile & Amphibian Forums

hey everyone! thought i'd share my experiences with feeding my baby eyelash...
i got her from northshore, and was very pleased with her size and coloration. i had heard horror stories about trying to get them to feed, and was a little nervous. i've kept all kinds of hots before, but this was my first eyelash. i put her in a shoebox-type plastic sterilite container, and left her alone for a week or so. the humidity levels were right on. the first time i tried to feed her, i staye dup for over an hour. she would snap at the pinky head, and sometimes hold on, but never tried swallowing it. i finally gave up, since i had to work early the next morning.
i was told to try and move her to a more vertically type enclosure, and did so. the next time i tried feeding her, she took it on the first try! i was ecstatic- kinda like christmas morning as a child(LOL)
i fed her again last night, and she took the rest of the pinky, minus the head, on the first try again! i'm sure most people have not had the same luck!

Once eyelashes start eating on their own they're almost bullet-proof to keep...

Also, with arboreals, leaving them alone is sometimes the trick to get them to eat. If you sat and watched her hold on to the head of a pinky for that long, chances are she didn't eat it b/c you were there. Had you left the snake alone (not moved the cage, not done anything once it held on the the pink other than get out of the room) it probably would've taken the food.

Glad to hear it is going well for you.

>>Had you left the snake alone (not moved the cage, not done anything once it held on the the pink other than get out of the room) it probably would've taken the food.

This can be a tough call sometimes with picky eaters. Sometimes just the act of moving the tongs away (let alone closing the cage or leaving th room) is enough to scare them and make them drop the food. I sometimes find myself standing for several minutes at a time, as still as I can with the tongs whereever they were when the snake grabbed the food. Of course, that's always when my phone rings or a mosquito lands on my nose... Luckily most snakes get over that pretty quickly...

Agreed, and I have sat still for quite some time also... What I've found works great is a large plastic container that the snake cannot get out of with a perch in it. This way as soon as the snake bites I can leave the snakes' view while it still has the mouse in its mouth, and leave the room without being noticed (the act of putting a top on the cage etc is usually enough to make a baby arboreal let go of its meal)... opaque sides allow me to see the snake enough to know that it has food in its mouth, but blocks enough movement that the snake doesn't tend to let go of they prey item. It allows me to work with multiple animals at once without disturbing the others.

It is a delicate balance, and it can take some time to develop a "feel" for feeding baby arboreals. Some people might disagree with me on here and say that is unsafe, but there have been times where I've had multiple perches set up on my kitchen table and have had multiple baby arboreals perched and eating at the same time out in the open... Once they'd all finish I'd put them all back in their cages. I could see from across the room that all the snakes were still on the perches, and if a snake decided to crawl down off the perch, I could get back to the animal before there was a threat of it getting away. One of the best perches for this that I've found is an empty 2-liter soda bottle with a bamboo skewer punched through the top part. It provided a stable of enough base to hold the bottle upright, and gives the snake a perch to feed off of... at the same time, it holds the baby arboreal high enough off the ground/table that it doesn't tend to want to fall off, and the skewer is through the top part of the bottle where it is curved, and it is too big around for the snake to climb down.... if they get tired of perching they tend to just coil up around the top of the bottle cap, and after the other snakes have finished eating and are back in their normal cages I can then deal with the problem feeders.

Oh yeah, and by opaque I mean translucent

Hi nice to hear that you got it working. Where are the photos?

I had 10 babies some months ago (all are sold and doing well) and almost all of them eat pinkie heads without any problems I was really surprised that they worked so easily..
So I guess I'm superlucky. hah hah lol
Only two refuses from food because they have something wrong with their eyes (it looks like they don't have any pupils or so).. but they are in the freezer now

BTW: I keep my babies in candyboxes 20x20x10cm (10cm is the height)
Best wishes Sami
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-- www.nothingtosay.tk --

LOL- NO PICS AS OF NOW! JUST GOT A NEW CAMERA, WHICH IS GOING TO MY WIFE'S AND I ANNIVERSERY PRESENT! YES! WILL GET PICS UP SOON...
WHAT IS THE GROWTH RATE ON THESE GUYS? SHOULD I WAIT 2 WEEKS TO FEED THEM AGAIN? THANKS IN ADVANCE

OK i'll be waiting some photos later..

I have fed babies and neonates about once a week (sometimes even more). I know that schlegelii´s has a very slow metabolism but if you got temperatures and so, right I would say 4-5 times food per month would be ok..

Best regards Sami
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-- www.nothingtosay.tk --

thanks for the pics! yeah, i knew the metabolism of the schlegs was a little slow... i'll keep them at once a week then!