New hatchlings
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I had some really late hatchlings, over 90 days incubation. As a result the little ones appear to be undersized, i.e. the egg case simply broke down after all that time and some were under-developed. I need advice for how long we should leave the little ones on moist sand and when should we encourage feeding. These were salvaged from very precarious nests and incubated at ambient air temps. It was unseasonably cool this summer in Maryland. All nests seemed to take longer. I have experience with shorter incubations which appear to produce sronger and larger hatchlings. Last year I had near perfect hatching at 60 days. Any thoughts greatly appreciated. What do most of you feed to the newborns? I have used the Zoo Med hatchling food with great success. M W
Wow, I’ve never dealt with under-developed neonates before. Wouldn’t the procedure be the same regardless of fetal development at this point; i.e. wait for their yolk sacs to be absorbed before attempting feeding? There doesn’t seem to be any other options since their eggs cases have already broken down; otherwise overwintering might have been plausible. If currently kept outdoors, I might suggest bringing them indoors and allowing warmer temperatures to stimulate activity. Once they’re up and about, I normally transfer them from the incubating medium to their permanent setup. As far as feeding is concerned, most of us try all manner of live foods to stimulate feeding response such as blackworms and bloodworms from fish stores, as well as brine shrimp and ghost shrimp. Some also use crickets and guppies. Personally, I then go to frozen worms and small, dried anchovies before attempting Reptomin or other prepared dried foods, like ZooMed’s. Please keep us posted on how they do – all the best! – Chun
MW, If I had undersized hatchlings I would keep them on damp paper towels inside a small container that was in a larger container such as a plastic sweater box. I would put the whole thing on top of a heating pad that had a couple of layers of towel on it. The heating pad would be kept on low. I personally don’t think that I would keep them on damp sand only because I wouldn’t want them to inadvertently ingest some sand at this small size. Once the yolk sacs were absorbed I would put them in a shoe box sized container on the towels and on the heating pad with about 1/2 inch of water. I would start feeding blood worms and in a week or so I would start adding the small fry sized Lion head koi food pellets. It has cuttle fish in it and all of my babies love it. After a couple of weeks of that I would then start adding larger sized pellet food or baby Reptomin. I would add a chunk of a small bird calcium block as soon as I put them in water. I would think they would be needing calcium. I also put a small spot light over a half brick (split brick) that I use as a basking spot. The heat from the spot and heating pad under them should boost their activity level and appetite. They should grow pretty fast. Take a look in our egroup files at my folder ‘Vickie’s group’ and look at the 4some picture. These babies were not quite 4 months old here and you can see how much they have grown. What kind of DBTs are your babies? Good luck with them…. Vickie
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