Marnie's Snakes

[EasternGirl]

Yep...the last few I found tonight looked very dry, you could barely see heads...or they were missing half of the body. She is up to a total count of 20 last check. I just hope she gets everything out...I was able to feel her stomach tonight and it feels like she has a few more soft lumps inside...I think she still needs to pass a few more. I will keep checking her stomach. Will keep everyone posted. Thanks for everyone's concern.

[katach]

Poor girl. No more boys for her.

[EasternGirl]

No...but she will have a roomie soon thanks to Steve. Let's just hope she takes it easy on the radix and doesn't act too territorial or crabby. Last check she was up to 25 babies...just found five more stillborns in the tank. My gosh I would have had quite the litter to deal with if all of these babies had made it.

[EasternGirl]

So for those of you who have taken care of babies...should I definitely be feeding the babies every day at this point?

[guidofatherof5]

Small meals. I don't suggest stuffing the little scrubs everyday.
They are little eating machines, trying to get out of that happy meal size.

[EasternGirl]

I have been giving them a little dish of cut up nightcrawlers each night. Each little scrub takes a few bites and seems to be satisfied. It's late now and I am just getting home so they might have to wait until morning for their next meal though...they ate some worms last night. I will either feed them tonight or tomorrow morning. I might try some tilapia this time.

[EasternGirl]

Gave the babies some tilapia tonight...I think only one baby ate...I'm having a very hard time at this point telling the babies apart! But I think it was Zeus...and I'm pretty sure that it was he who came back a couple of times and ate...I finally had to gently shove him away so that he didn't eat too much...the others did not want any fish. I even tried scenting the fish with a worm..and mixing a little reptamin in it. Cee Cee passed another stillborn...that makes 26 total...I have noticed the stillborns having a very rancid smell at this point...like dead fish. I did not notice that last year, even though it took her three weeks to get them all out. Now, it is possible that I just didn't notice this last year. Perhaps that is normal because they are, in fact, dead. Do you think I should be concerned about this smell? Could it be indicative of infection or sepsis?

[ConcinusMan]

i think its indicative of decomposition. the dead ones are rotting. it can cause sepsis for mom if they dont all pass in a reasonably short time but often they just come out before mom gets sick.

[Stefan-A]

This is starting to sound exactly like what happened to my bigger female vagrans in 2010. Dead babies popping out, smelly, half of the body missing. Took a month to clear most of them out and the last one was expelled about 3 months later.

That turned out okay for the female, by the way. No complications following that disaster.

[ConcinusMan]

It's happened to me perhaps more than 5 times over the years. not sure about the cause, but only one very old female was lost. the rest were fine.