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Posted by John Hedger on October 15, 2002 at 01:39:31:
In Reply to: My first ATB litter... posted by tenfield on October 13, 2002 at 00:54:01:
"My female dropped 10 babies on the fourth, but only three appear to be in shed- and not very deeply. How long before i can expect them to come out of it and start eating? How likely are they to take their first meals before shedding?"Tyler
Tyler,
While amazon babies will often strike at pinks either before or after a shed...they often will not hold on and coil. I think Mike H's advice to wait them out a bit after the shed is very sound advice. My litter of 9/11 shed and I waited till they were crawling and searching their cages at night(mainly because I was too busy!) to try and feed them. Eight out of twelve took live pinks on the second or third strike (within 5 minutes)!! The ones I had tried earlier, just after the shed were too stressed to take. I did get one to take "hotdog pink" though (dead pink heated up in very hot tap water!)LoL!!
After the amazon strikes and coils, one must be careful to move away in , extremely slow, very slow motion and either leave the amazon's container uncovered or cover it (slowly!) with a thin piece of paper or the little buggers will often let go of their meal and proceed to stare up at you!!
I used the technique once with chondros (which are much harder to start than amazons!) of putting their plastic containers within high brown grocery bags... then covering the top of the bag gently with a piece of paper after the chondro struck and held on. The depth and darkness of the bags helped them to feel secure, plus the chondros couldn't crawl out easily after swallowing their pinks!! I never left them totally alone during these feeding trials, but at least I could walk around the room, fix lunch, etc. without stressing them out!LoL
One thing Ralph Chapman (Dark Grove) said about a baby he sold me once totally cracked me up. He said "Bring a good book when trying to feed him!" LoL!!!
John Hedger
