Dekayi BABIES!

[bio6464]

Ok if you read my "BABY" post you know what happened. The strange thing is it was a full day from the first baby til the rest. :confused: Oh well the final count is 17 healthy little Dekayi babies...YIKES! :D
http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//500/medium/baby_browns.jpg
And 1 more...now how am I gonna feed these little monsters???????:eek:
http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//500/medium/baby_browns2.jpg
Jerry

[Zephyr]

I've been using cut-up nightcrawler segments (one individual segment) and baby slugs.

[zooplan]

You need not to feed them, if you send them all to me right now;)
Or you can try to get and breed "Enchytraeus albidus".

[infernalis]

Jerry, when Xena had her babies, I had to go out in the yard every day around 6:30 AM and forage for slugs that were all of 1-3 MM in size.

Early evenings also worked, and at night with a flashlight.

If you have a lawn of any size, place some square pices of plywood on the ground in shady damp areas, in a few days, there will be slugs up under them.

Alternately Dorothy and I would go out back to the woods, and start rolling over chunks of tree limbs and debris on the ground finding worms that were as big around as a pencil lead, and cut them into thirds.

Night crawler chunks are too big.

These babies will feed as often as you can provide the food, I often fed mine twice a day:eek:

Dekai neonates have a much faster metabolism that Garter babies. The good news is they will be so much bigger in a couple of months.

Last winter I set up a slug farm in the basement to keep the food available.

[anji1971]

Congrats, Jerry! They're adorable.
Slugs are their favourite, but the tiny worms Wayne was mentioning will also work well.
Best wishes for the feeding!!:)

[bio6464]

Well my large Dekay gave birth today while I was out getting my classroom ready for the kids. 18 stillborn, 5 healthy. Maybe that's why she has been so lethargic for the last couple of weeks. I guess it's okay...I can't imagine trying to feed 23 new ones on top of the 17 born yesterday.:eek:
Jerry

[drache]

wow, Jerry
congrats - they're so lovely with their little dark heads
you'll have your hands full with them

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

congratulations!

Nightcrawler pieces are too big... unless you slice them vertically :p

I have 4 new baby redbellied snakes, hard to tell but I think two are silver with a brown stripe (the rare color) and 2 are reddish brown. I am going to be feeding them tomorrow.

What if I were to take a large slug and cut it up? does that work? or scent worm pieces with a slug? thre are no baby slugs here... just huge ones that are far too big for even most of my garters to tackle!:eek:

[drache]

somebody once told me he'd gotten a w/c adult to eat the "can-o-slugs" stuff
it would seem that that would be a lot less messy to cut up
and then one could perhaps mist it a bit, to bring out the flavour?

[infernalis]

Shannon- Sit the slug in a bowl and use a single edge razor blade, safer yet a window scraper with the blade mounted.

I have chopped up slugs before, it works:D

[bio6464]

Shannon like you I don't have access to baby slugs...sadly I can't find adult slugs either, and believe me I've tried EVERYWHERE! I did get 2 of them to eat small pieces of leaf worm...but that leaves 12 from this litter and the 5 new ones (very frail looking) not yet eating.
Jerry

[aSnakeLovinBabe]

these red bellies are simply.... adorable. They would call a penny a lounge chair. I am not keeping them... however. I am going back to the mountains this weekend where I found all those wonderful herps and I am taking them for release... I only kept that female because I thought she was not gravid!