Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Good News: My 2 clutches of eggs hatched out this week. The numbers in each clutch were 6 & 5 (3 went bad after 1st week.)
4 of the 11 were pastels. I'm OK with the production, it's not 50/50, but it's OK.

Bad News: 2 of the pastels are really small. 1 is 34 grams the other is 37 grams. All the others are between 60 and 70.

I'm looking for thoughts and suggestions. Thanks.

Well, I had a baby hatch last season that was the smallest I've ever seen! I swear it was no larger than a newborn Kenyan Sand Boa (which I've produced years ago). It seemed fully formed in all ways, so I set it up like any other. It did refuse to eat for the first month, so I hate to say this, but I did assist feed. I believe it may have died if I did not try to assist feed as the body weight after a month was LOW. The poor little bugger was SO small and interesting (my one regret, I did NOT take accurate measurement as I did not expect it to live... arg! ). So, I assist fed a newborn pink mouse each week for three weeks. Each time I offered live first. Then, on the fourth week... wham! It ate all on it's own.

'Dinky' is now just a little larger than an average newborn Ball baby and eats like a little horse. I guess it was the right thing to do in the end. Dinky will remain in my collection for the duration of it's life. The neat thing is it's a female AND 100% het albino.

I'd say, give them a chance! Be VERY gentle and try and assist if that's what it comes to over the next month or so. Just my opinion.

Matt

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"Change what you cannot accept... do not accept what you can't change!"

Tod Ashley C.$.C.

Dinkys egg was the egg on the bottom right. It was SO freaking small!!!

Matt

Cool, I've got a nipple deformity egg that isn't that bad on day 43 today. My only other ball egg with the nipple deformity was last year and its baby was kinked but yours gives me hope this year's nipple deformity egg might make it.

I called them 'light bulbs'. Either way, best of luck with it!

Matt
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"Change what you cannot accept... do not accept what you can't change!"

Tod Ashley C.$.C.

I mean assist feeding??? on a baby Python woa!

I bet it is not as easy as it sounds, I would like to know how do you do that.

ladromar

I usually get in a number of farm hatched babies every year and there always a few that need assist feeing. Out of 250 this year I think there have been about 10. Usually it is pretty easy. Usually.... What I do is use the nose of the mouse to open the snakes mouth, then push the mouse to the back of the mouth then gently close the mouth over the mouse. The snake either gets a feeding response at this point or figures it is easy to swallow than trying to dislodge the mouse from its teeth but they will usually swallow. In my experience once you let the snake go with the mouse in it's mouth it is very important to stay completely still until the mouse is mostly swallowed. Other wise you startle the snake and it starts working the mouse out of its mouth. I have used this technique with good success, however there are those times that they still resist. In these cases I push the mouse a little farther in so the head is in the throat. It make take a few times but you should have good success without stressing the snake out too much. You can also assist feed a normal size prey item this was as opposed to force feeding a much smaller rodent than the snake would usually eat.

George Knaack
GLK HERP

>>I mean assist feeding??? on a baby Python woa!
>>I bet it is not as easy as it sounds, I would like to know how do you do that.

It was not easy, but patience won each round. I did basically what the other person posted. I would sit with the baby and the thawed pink in the back of it's mouth until it started to eat it. That can be a LONG time!

Matt
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"Change what you cannot accept... do not accept what you can't change!"

Tod Ashley C.$.C.

I had twins in 2000 at 31 and 34 grams and both ate live small hopper mice on their own fine (I start normal sized ones out on large hoppers or small adults or now rat fuzzies). They grew just fine.

I found a 20 grams small labyrinth-like ball python at an importer about two months ago.
It didn't eat of course. I force fed it one time, it regurgitated it out again. A week later I assist fed it, that took a lot of time but it worked. Since then I assist feed it every week. Each week his reaction improves. First it just swallowed the pinkie, then it strangled my thumb for two weeks, the last time it strangled the pinkie and ate it too. I think it had to learn how to do it. I expect him to eat on his own in one or two weeks from now. It is doing very well and gained 10 grams !

Chris van Kalken
The Netherlands

Wow, *nice* pic! Thanks for sharing.
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"Isn't sanity just a one-trick pony, anyway? I mean, all you get is that one trick: rational thought.
But when you're good and crazy, man, the sky's the limit!"

1.0 BP Rescued from street
1 Double-yellow headed Amazon
2 Tiels
7 cats (rescues)
1 Cocker (rescue)