Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I purchased two hatchling alterna gray bands at a recent show they are about
three weeks old.I have tried day old pinkies for the last two weeks and nothing
I have kept them overnight in a small deli cup with the pink
live and then brained and still nothing.
any help and or sugestions will be appreciated.

Alternas are notoriously hard to get started on pinkies. Have you tried scenting the pinkies with a lizard. I have had success scenting with a small amount of anole blood or anole skin. You can freeze the anole, thaw it when you want to scent your pinks, and scent with it for a while.

If that does not work, you may have to feed it a lizard first to get some food in it, and then try switching to lizard scented pinks.

Alternas are lizard eaters in the wild and are pre-programmed to eat lizards.

Keep this in mind when feeding them.

Good luck,
Tom Anderson

Try some LizardMaker. I have had good success with Alterna with that product. If you follow the directions, it doesn't do so well, but I found a little method for it.

Take a day-old pinkie a rinse him off real well with water and dry him with a paper towel. Then wet a small corner of a paper towel with LizardMaker, and wrap the pinkie up in that and let him stay in it for about 15 minutes to get the LizardMaker soaked into his skin some. It is real watery and if you just put it on the pinkie it doesn't stay on very well. Now put the pinkie and the snake in a deli cup and put it aside someplace and leave it alone for at least 24 hours. I've had baby alterna stay in the deli cup with the pinkie for 2 days before they finally ate it. You might have to try that 3 or 4 times at 2 or 3 day intervals before he takes it.

If he doesn't take the pinkie after you try that 3 or 4 times, it might be PinkiePress time before he loses too much body weight. If you have to force feed or assist feed, wait at least a week before you try the scented pinkie again. Try the pinkie every time before you resort to using a Pinkie Press or whatever. Eventually 99% of them will eat, but they will sometimes make you pull your hair out first. (Just think about having 30 or 40 of them to deal with).

I've never had any luck with Gray Bands using the braining technique. It works with other things, like Pyros and such, but for some reason, not Gray Bands. And..what I've found from feeding lizards to baby alterna is that they never want to switch away from lizards once you get them started. I suppose it's better than watching it starve to death, but I'd rather just go ahead and force feed a few times and get them going on pinkies.