Greetings
I'm back again to ask more questions regarding my IBD- exposed red-tail born Feb 2,2008. I'd appreciate any information you're able to give-- sorry, it is a long post.

Brigid (still haven't had her sexed--still presume she's female) is actively eating twice a week: 2 rat pinkies for one feeding and 1 rat pinky and 1 fuzzy mouse for the other (all F/T). She used to be slow to eat, but since the beginning of this month, she's been quick to strike at one if not both of her prey. She was only pooping once or twice a month before, but since a REALLY big dump on 6/5, she's pooped smaller amounts three times since.
That's the background, here are the Q's:

1) Her stool is typically a brown smear pile, not "balls"--is that due to all the fat in the rat pinkies? Or is that normal for babies? (our baby rat snake and corn snake have similar poop).

2) Every now and then I see greenish urates. I've read here that I don't really need to worry unless it's ALL the time-- but is there anything I should do to modify her diet to prevent that?

3) She's now almost 5 months old, and I'm guessing average size for a Columbian baby. My bf thinks that she could probably be bumped up to 1 adult mouse per week, but I think that's just a bit too big --if we had something half a size smaller, I'd be more inclined to try that. Would it be approprite to feed her such a large meal once a week, or is multiple small meals still a better way to go for a growing baby?

4) She's shedding about every 2 months-- is that ok/normal range or should it be more monthly?

5) This may be crazy: I SWEAR that yesterday morning when I took her out, she had considerably darkened---to the point where I thought that her "clean" head was starting to look "dirty" with dark scales and that despite all the beautiful pink she's been taking on, that now she was thinking of taking on some of her father's more hypermelanistic traits. I hadn't had her out in three days before that, and when I palpated her, there was definitely something to be passed. She passed some poop and greenish urates yesterday, and when I looked at her again last night, she was back to normal pinkish. This morning, I took her out and looked at her again in natural light, thinking it was just the light in our apartment, but could not get the same dark effect. There was more poop and urates this morning. Is there ANY way that she could have changed colors, and so quickly? If so, could it have been due to some waste product she passed? We also have geckos in the house--so I've gotten used to babies who can go through drastic color changes in a day.

That's all for now, and hopefully not more than you have time for. If you've read this far, thank you. If you have any answers, I'd really appreciate them.

Antigone