Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The bad news first:
Two weeks ago I had another pietschmanni hatch out but unforunatly it died shortly after hatching. This was a really big dissappointment to me espescially since it was the nicest looking pietschmanni I have ever seen, its whole back was spotted in White. I have no idea what was wrong with it, I guess it was just too weak. Well two weeks passed and its clutchmate never hatched so I decided to open its egg. Inside I found an embryo in only the early stages of development. No clue as to what went wrong with this clutch but I did have a problem with the heating in my house and the temps reached 85 . Maybe that had something to do with it?

As for the good news. I recently reintroduced my female to my males encloser about a month and a half ago. She had been separate from him for about two and a half months and had developed nice big calcium sacs from all the snails I had been feeding her so I thought she was ready to breed again. They have mated three times to my observation and today I found a single egg in their cage. Hopefully I can hatch out this one.
-Matt
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www.madagascarherp.com

Where do you get snails, and do all the uroplatus eat them?

I just get the snails out of my yard, garden, and a field next to my house. Make sure the area where you are collecting them in pesticide and herbicide free. They are just the common garden snail that you see everywhere, I believe the scientific name is Helix aspersa. To my knowledge all the Uroplatus species eat them but only the females. Males seem to have no interest in them. They are a great way to boost calcium intact for breeding females and a nice change in diet.
-Matt

IMO, Snails are great but watch the effects on the plants.
the book says that females eat then for calcium but i've
noticed more attention going to the pill bugs by the females
and even the males in our enclosures. one note though. house your
pill bugs in a vented tuperware container and using gold fish flakes to cover the soil lightly, this ensures a good gut load before feeding them off to the Up's.