Today was my day off and since I saw that Candy defecated yesterday I knew I could give her another pinky today. So of course I was so excited at the possibility that I might SEE her eat her second-ever meal in captivity. This time the pinky was f/t, as I had to make a special trip to a pet store last week and pick out 5 brand newly born live pinks that were small enough for her to eat. $1 each for those suckers too! But she is worth it. Her last meal was a live pinky left in overnight. So I was not optimistic that she would actually eat right at the very moment I offered it to her. But she did! She was curled partially under her fake plant and when I snuck the pinky in under the brush with her she wasted no time grabbing this thing and swallowing. At first I was very, very cautious about trying to take a pic, until I realized she was very aware of my presence and simply did not seem to be bothered by me as she was eating.
Now of course in all of my excitement over feeding this snake I had forgotten that you guys wanted a photo of the anal plate... well once she had eaten the pinky it was a little late to go grabbing her and flipping her upside down and finding the right lighting outside under the tree (the only lighting that's going to allow my camera to focus on her extremely tiny tail is outdoors)... so I scooped her up gently and peeked at her tail... as expected she DOES have a single anal plate that is not divided. Not that I doubted that she was anything else but an eastern milksnake in the first place... but now anyone who questions her ID further is trollin' as far as I am concerned.
here are the photos of candy eating the pink:
