Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Thanks to Chris' suggestion, our little YT girl that we bought last month in Daytona has decided that pinky mice are edible after all.

I bought three live pinks yesterday. Jeff took the last two feeder goldfish and "sacrificed" them over the pinks. The little YT ate all three pinks and the decapitated goldfish as well.

How can two tiny goldfish produce so much of a smell?

Now begins the journey toward a f/t diet for her.

BN

Try a couple more feedings with scented pinks (using less fish guts each time) and then try a live unscented pinky. One of mine switched to unscented after two scented feedings. The other one hasn't switched over to unscented yet.
(Dan Felice passed the "fish guts covered pinky" technique (LOL) to me last year with my uni hatchling.)

Frozen/thawed will probably be more of a challenge...they really seem to like the movement.

I hope Jeff is recovering from his battle wounds. I almost took one on the nose the other day from mine
Chris

warm up several pinks [not in water though] and before serving, tear a patch of epidermis off the throats of the pinks. serve upside down [throats up] immediately. garnish at will. lol. this really works, they will be attracted to that spot....of course, if this procedure is a little to icky for you, you can always simply have jeff handle the male and then just drain him over the mice later. that would probably work just as well! ;-]

Jeff, could you send me a few dozen pinkies that have been scented on your arm? (LOL)

Thanks for the other feeding tip. It's not too icky for me but if my wife catches me preparing this sacrifice she'll probably think I've lost it.
Chris

... again. LOL. Harsh crowd. Unfortunatly only adult male (pissy) Y/T's are after my blood. The neonate seems to like the spousal unit better.

Regards,
J.

I usually float the frozen rodents in a plastic bag over a bowl of water that I've heated in the nuke-ro-wave to thaw and heat them. The frozen pinks, though are so small that they just want to cook as soon as they thaw.

How many pinks a week should I be feeding to my summer 2003 YT girl?

BN

i usually put out the night before what i'll need in the morning or in a pinch, use the top of the gas stove for small stuff. thawing stuff in water is ok but not really for picky/stubborn feeders. it washes off the good stuff that makes the item attractive to a snake to begin with......most people underfeed their hatchlings it seems to me. once i get them to start taking rodents, i give them all they want as often as they want it. this reinforces a good feeding response in them that will last a lifetime. and they grow out of that pinkie/fuzzie stage quickly also which makes life easier. how much should you feed a 03 yt? depends but you should be able to tell that she ate something at least when she's done. i'd feed her light meals everytime you see her out and about. mine eat like every 3 or 4 days pretty much. the more they eat, the more they want to eat and that's what i try to get across to them. and the ones that catch on the quickest.....become the biggest. but that's nature......post a pic of your baby sometime ok? and good luck w/ them!

I can thaw pinks fine, but I don't have gas available for cooking or anything else here on this island.

I usually heat water in the microwave and then put the rodents (that are in a plastic bag) to float on the warmed water. Unless the bag is defective, the rodents don't contact the water. My experience has been that the pinks get cooked. Maybe I'm heating the water too much, or I'm heating too much water --usually a 2 qt.bowl. We only have one animal that's eating pinks.

Geez, normally I just want to reheat leftovers or cook something in the nuker. Obviously, I need to tweak my technique.

BN

I use Herring to scent food for my eastern babies. It's SUPER smelly fish and I leave it frozen in the same container. Then to thaw it, I put the pinks in a plastic bag, fill the sink with hot water and just let them float on top. It only takes a few minutes to thaw pinks.

I know, I'm feeding Easterns, not YT's, so it may not apply to what everyone is doing. But it's working with all but one of the babies this year.

Doug T

just in case i conveyed the wrong idea....the top of a gas stove is warm all the time due to the pilot lights. i just leave pinks/fuzzies on top of stove for a couple minutes in a container.....i don't actually turn the stove on...ever. lol! j/k. but you are right, it is very easy to 'cook' small items like pinks. even just floating them in tepid or even cool water will do the job while i go do something else for a few minutes. hot water is really not even necessary to thaw a few pinks.

Try not heating the water. I simply use hot tap water. Works well for me.

Eric

I have a piece of melamine board about 2' long and 16" wide. I keep two human heating pads under it. I just lay all of my frozen items out on top of that board and turn the heating pads on and let them thaw. The pinkies always thaw and warm up within about 20 minutes, the mice withind about 1 hour or so, and the rats within 2 hours. That staggers the thawing out to fit my feeding ritual, feed small stuff first, fill out feeding records, feed bigger stuff, fill out records, feed big stuff, fill out records..

Since you are heating through the melamine board, it never gets too hot. The melamine is easy to disinfect afterwards too. You have to turn the rats and mice over once, about halfway through the process, but it works for me.

Dan,

That lil slit throat trick works great!!! Thanks for putting me on to that last year. It has like a 99% efficiency on my collection!!
Kudos

A.C.