I got my first little short tail today. She's a 105 gram Breitensteini. The guy I got her from said that she's 2 month old and seems pretty calm right now. I had her out for a few minutes handling her. She gave me a good nip when I first unboxed her, which is understandable after riding around in a truck for 24 hours. Then she calmed right down and started exploring around my arms, and was even curious about my beard.
I was hoping she was big enough to handle the mice I have tht my ball pythons outgrew. But she's not quite there yet. She's 105 gram and the mice average 18 gram. So those will have to wait. The people said she was taking frozen thawed small mice. I'm wondering if it is worth trying to swap her to rats after she acclimated after the shift. If so, what would be a good rat size to get her on? I'm thinking some small fuzzy rats would be perfect for this time. But I'm not exactly sure of what size to feed her at this point in life. I have a pretty good idea for when they are larger. With the short tails having a slower metabolism than balls, do I still follow the 10% guidline while small, or do they recqire a bit smaller. I just got her today and will give her a good week or so to acclimate before trying to feed her. So I have time to get the proper sized food she needs.
I know her tub is WAY to big right now, I was wanting to get a larger individual but he wasn't available. So I'm cluttering up the large tub with lots of paper towel and lots of hides, which I need to get more of. and hoping she will like it. I did that with two of my balls at about that size and they did fine, so I'm hoping she will.
Well time for a few pictures, more will come when she gets comfortable.
Kyle
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