Reptile & Amphibian Forums

This may or may not mean anything, but I thought I would throw it out just in case...I've been meaning to post this for a couple of months.

With my baby Y/T, I had tried all of the tricks, scenting live mouse pinkies with fish, etc. I had been able to get mine to eat one scented mouse pinkie but she steadfastly refused after that, wanting only goldfish.

Dean told me to try the biggest mouse pinkie that I could find that still didn't have hair on it. I tried that several time to no avail...still only wanted goldfish.

Then one day, I happened to have an extra live rat pinkie. I thought, "What the heck...I'll try it." I put the rat pinkie in the cage and it lasted all of 2 minutes. As soon as she got a whiff of it, she was on it with a vengeance. She still will not take mouse pinkies, but will take rat pinkies as long as you will feed them to her.

Here's my though...maybe mice aren't a part of their natural diet, but rats are? Maybe they don't naturally recognize the smell of a mouse pinkie as a food item?

i'll get 3 or 4 different kind of feeding responses from a single clutch. but the more you do it, the easier it gets. wait till you have 20 or 30 hatchlings to get started at once......you'll want to kill yourself some days! dean's 'assist method' works best for me. it takes the option of denial away from them for the most part and they'll start eating voluntarily faster overall. you'll need a deft touch and all morning! ;-[