a reply to group member about tail bitibg

[modelgrafx@aol.com]

modelgrafx@aol.com

October 2, 2002 at 6:43 pm #17823

Hi all, The following is a reply to a group member that asked why I thought some of my baby ornates started biting tail. Were they over-crowded or underfed? Because I thought others may have wondered why this was my response to him… Well, orginally everything was fine. I had about 12 dbt babies in a large sweater box with 2 baby chinese box turtles. All very little and plenty of room. I fed multiple times during the day. One day a baby chinese box flipped over and in it’s attempt to flip back I assume was thrashing tail and feet and one of the dbt babies saw the wiggling tail and chomped it. I had been feeding the live brown worms and they were used to wiggling things being food. I didn’t think about it happening again and didn’t know who had done the biting so I left them alone. The next day several tails had been bitten and still not knowing who the culprit was I broke them down to 3 smaller groups and it continued to happen in each group. I was never able to figure out which ones did it but as they were switched to pellet food it stopped. The whole thing has been very frustrating. None of my male group were ever involved with the “biting girls” and none have ever lost even a tail tip. It sure is sad because the babies are beautiful except for the tail. The photos don’t show it but quite a few of the babies look almost lavendar on their heads because of the pink underlying the pale gray of their skin. It is a very pretty affect. Several have pink heads with very few and tiny spots. My dominant male has a pink head and is the father of most of my babies. Are you interested in any? Vickie

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