Reptile & Amphibian Forums

i have two newborns. how long after the birth do they shed? also what should i feed live or frozen thawed for it's first meal? please let me know.

also what size should i feed them i have frozen hoppers as of the moment is that adequet?

In my experience and from what I've read, most babies will shed within a couple of weeks of birth. If I recall correctly (from my litter in 2000 & my best friend's litter in 2002), most of our babies shed within a week or so. With my litter I had not discovered frozen prey yet, so they were fed live fuzzies to start with. With my best friend's litter, she fed them f/t hoppers. Both ways worked and all the little ones ate. I'm expecting a new litter sometime later this month or the beginning of May, and I plan to offer f/t hoppers as their first meal. I don't expect to have any problems with it, but even if I do end up with a picky eater or two, it's easy enough to pick up a few live fuzzies to jump start them and then switch to the f/t hoppers. Hope this helps. Best of luck with your newborns.

Raven

>>i have two newborns. how long after the birth do they shed? >>also what should i feed live or frozen thawed for it's first >>meal? please let me know.
>>also what size should i feed them i have frozen hoppers as of >>the moment is that adequet?

You should try with fuzzies, and I'd feed it live, sometimes they won't pay attentionif it is not moving, and plus, the fuzzy isn't going to hurt your snake.

I've had babies start out on live pinky rats, but my best sucess is with fuzzy mice--even pinky mice that are seemingly small, just to get them started. After a couple meals, I switch to pinky rats, then after they get a good feeding response, I start prekilling them. If you have babies that are stubborn feeders, as I do, a little trick that works here is: Get a small plastic container(cottage cheese size) cut a hole in the top that's big enough for the snake to crawl thru. Put a feeder in it at night, and check it in the morning. It should be gone.