How long should new snakes be left alone?

[Madame_Mel]

so i chopped the scented pinky into fours, put it on a plastic lid and 5 min later went in to check....he is in the process of swallowing it but am afraid a few tiny pieces of substrate are stuck to it....happy that he took the pinky piece but not happy there is some wood stuck to it

[Invisible Snake]

You can try cutting a pinky in half (lengthwise), I do this while they're still frozen with an old pair of scissors, and after it thaws I take a dead minnow and rub it (hard) against the 2 pinky halves and voila, fish scented pinkies!

[Madame_Mel]

he spit it the mouse part out! maybe it was too big?

[chris-uk]

he spit it the mouse part out! maybe it was too big?

Quite possibly. For my baby snakes I usually cut the pinky into smaller pieces for the snakes that don't tong feed. I start by cutting off all the legs (normally taking off a bit of flesh from the body with each one), then the tail (again, taking some flesh with the tail to bulk it up). Then I take off the head, and either keep it whole, or for smaller babies I'll cut it lengthways. Then the body gets cut in half lengthways, if I can pick out the liver I take it out to feed separately (lots of nutrition in the liver), and I'll cut each half in half lengthways again to give a quartered body. Cut it while it's frozen... you'd make a hell of a mess if you did this with a thawed pinky.
With a pinky cut this small it's not so intimidating for little scrubs to swallow, and as I know they are eating I'll increase the size of the pieces.

[EasternGirl]

There is something about albino checkereds and hanging plants I tell you! Mine just loves them too. As far as the bright light goes...like I said before, I think it depends on the snake. As long as you don't have a UV light on them...I don't think there is anything wrong with regular light bulbs. Chris...don't you have LED lights on your albino? Little Joe is in with the eastern babies and Bella and they have a regular 40 watt bulb on during the day. It doesn't seem to bother Little Joe...he just keeps to the other side of the tank or under a hide most of the time. Possum seems to like a bit of light. He only comes out if I take the towel off the end of the tank and let the light from the lamp on the desk next to his tank shine in a little.

[Invisible Snake]

Another possibility for him spiiting it out could be because the pinky parts weren't heavily scented enough with the minnow.

[chris-uk]

Chris...don't you have LED lights on your albino?

Yes, I use LED lighting for all my vivs. With the price of electricity now the LEDs are saving me a fortune, shame I can't get solar powered heat mats...

[ConcinusMan]

You can power anything with the right panel and in the case of the heat mats; an inverter. I recently used a solar panel to charge a 12 volt battery, then an inverter hooked to the battery ran several AC devices. You can do what you said, but it will likely require batteries, not just the solar panel.

Yes, I use LED lighting for all my vivs. With the price of electricity now the LEDs are saving me a fortune, shame I can't get solar powered heat mats...

[Stefan-A]

Yes, I use LED lighting for all my vivs. With the price of electricity now the LEDs are saving me a fortune, shame I can't get solar powered heat mats...

Solar power? In the UK?

[Invisible Snake]

You can power anything with the right panel and in the case of the heat mats; an inverter. I recently used a solar panel to charge a 12 volt battery, then an inverter hooked to the battery ran several AC devices. You can do what you said, but it will likely require batteries, not just the solar panel.

MacGyver over here lol ^