Tuesday takes her first rat. :)

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p...idsept2008.jpg

My BP Tuesday finally took her first rat. I was starting to think she would be an ASF muncher for life, which would not be so bad if the boogs grew faster and I didn't have to give her 3-5 juvies to make a meal.

I just moved, and as a result all the snakes were behind one feeding. I was feeding and had larger ASFs, but at the last second figured I would try her with a 21 day old rat.

I took the wee rat and gave it a bath in ASF pinks and pups. I should have grabbed a pic, it was about knee deep in squirmers. Then I rubbed her down with them. She seemed to take all of this in stride.

Poor thing... just one final indignity.

Placed her in with the snake and immediately Tuesday came out to investigate. Usually she is out and hits immediately, and she has never even come out when offered a rat before, so this was a good sign.

It took about 20 minutes for her to hit, but she did and dispatched of the rat quickly and efficiently.... which was good, as I am always concerned with a jump up in prey size.

I think it was a combination of the missed feed building up hunger, and the scenting with the ASF babes. I will scent the next few feeds and see how it goes.

Getting her on bigger pups and on regular rats will be a huge relief. She was an assist feed baby and did not take her first meal till she was close to six months old... she is still tiny and up till this point has only been taking ASFs.

Here is a pic... I know that pics are mandatory. :)

I think she is pretty darn cute personally (and terribly shy - I never see that poor snake's face).

Thanks for reading,
Bruce

PS: she is het for VPI Axanthic.

Good stuff.

MAybe next time no rub down necessary!

Sweeet, glad to see it's so far going really smooth for ya's! Now if I could only get more snakes to take ASF's while I raise domestic girls to size for breeding! All my girls are hitting menopause one right after the other! Acck!!!

Things to build... rats to grow... busy busy busy

Congratulations Bruce :banana:

Alice and Charger ate their first rats tonight too, so I know how proud you must be :D

Robbin

Love the name!
Love the snake!!
LOVE that she ate her first rat!!! :D

Thanks all I was pretty happy to have this advancement.

Now if I could just get a *rat tree* that magically gave me the right size rats (before they are all devoured by the occupants of the hatchling rack), then life would be nearing perfect order. :)

Bruce

Congrats! I was so excited when Stanley switched over to rats!

Its a nice relief huh? And even if you have to scent a few times - you're on yoru way!

Yay! Congrats. I LOVE her name, sooo cute!

Her name was originally going to be Denise... then we met and she just looked like a Tuesday.

I have had to resort to naming my last three females after horror film heroines/villians... Carrie, Mae and Rosemary.

UGH... what happens when I end up with 200 snakes? :)

Bruce

PS: She took rat number two now, and no pre-screnting, she hit it with amazing force. A few more feeds and I will attempt to move her to FT, I was able to get 13 of the snakes to take FT at the last feed. :)

pardon the dumb question, but what is as ASF?