How long...

[guidofatherof5]

Pinky butt. So you butcher your pinkies into cuts of meat.
That's a good mom.

[kibakiba]

Haha, I just happened to cut it that way and grab the pinky butt instead of, say the head or anything else. I have to cut them into big enough chunks that Snap and Ember would want them, and small enough that Thumbelina and Squirt can down them too... Mama was lucky to get the only larger piece that was in the whole mix of fish and worm

[mustang]

i just rip em while theyre frozen....your snakes view you like the butcher at super markets
"ham or shoulders?....a head?"

[kibakiba]

Rip them? That sounds gross. I cut them up frozen and then offer it. Picky guys like Squirt will only eat thighs, tails or noses.

[mustang]

Rip them? That sounds gross. I cut them up frozen and then offer it. Picky guys like Squirt will only eat thighs, tails or noses.

i trained checker to bite anything dangling (and twitching) above.....idiots in high school believe iv trained an attack snake

[kibakiba]

Then they should see Snap, she'll rip fingers off if you put them near her.

[mustang]

Then they should see Snap, she'll rip fingers off if you put them near her.

i used a sock to cover my hand when i first got checker when i fed him....he only hit the sock once...and it was my fault (he was in blue phase) and he didnt even close his mouth before retracting! Hes always kinda slowly put his nose to it the wil grab it (unless it running like a fish or worm then all hell breaks loose)

[kibakiba]

Mama rejected food yesterday and is extremely restless again... Keeps going in and out of her water dish and she's clinging her tail to her towels and dragging them around. It looks kind of funny when she does that.

She also left me a nice huge log to clean up. I love her so much.

[ConcinusMan]

You should read this Chantel: JSTOR: An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie

I know it's old and they call T. ordinoides "puget sound garters" but it's still valuable research.

It might help to explain why you can't always depend on the date of conception to determine a due date with this species. Basically it's because T. ordinoides tend be receptive and mate long before the eggs are mature enough to be fertilized.

Concinnus tend to not be receptive, at least from what I've seen, until they are ready ovulate so we just count the days from the date of mating and it's easy to figure out when the babies will be born. (the eggs are mature enough to be fertilized when mating occurs) but not so with T. ordinoides. Silly female northwesterns will accept males sometimes in the fall and again in late winter or early spring, but don't actually ovulate until around June in the wild. That's when the egg is ready and gets fertilized. Can be weeks or months after mating before the babies start growing.

I brought my red stripe girl out of brumation and she's eating enough food every day for at least 3 snakes her size. Even though she hasn't mated, I suspect she's eating so much because she is in the process of creating eggs and needs the extra nutrients for the yolks. Even though she didn't mate last fall or so far this year, it's possible that she had enough sperm stored from a spring 2010 mating to produce a few fertile eggs. We'll see.

[kibakiba]

Yeah I know I can't rely on anything with my ordinoides. It's hard to relay on Mama when she shows signs of being about to give birth and screws up my sleep schedule and right once I got it back to normal, she goes and does it again. I think she does it intentionally, cause she likes being treated like a queen. She's just a huge, spoiled little girl... Cant blame me for spoiling her, though... She's just too precious