Best Christmas present ever !!

[zina10]

Out of all the hatchlings I had, there was/is one "problem" feeder.

The Emperor Pinstripe female. Never took a meal on her own. Tried ALL the tricks. Different feeders, live, f/t, prekilled.
They are raised in small tubs, with plenty of privacy and security. Husbandry SPOT ON.

Also tried PATIENCE and time. Eventually had to assist feed. Which I've done before, successfully, with other hatchlings (rescues, and friends, not mine).

This one? It fought it. It always took more then one try. It wasn't force feeding, but it wasn't a easy assist feed either by far.

In between assist feedings I kept trying the other tricks. Always giving it time in between.

After 4 of those feedings I got the little one up to a decent weight and past the second shed. I did one more assist feed and then I was simply going to wait it out.

This is the third week that I tried the "once weekly" offering of food and for the first time the little one seemed interested, rather then scared. Still shy though, so I left the
frozen/ thawed hopper mouse in the tub and left (tried that before, too).

Just came back and its GONE !!!!!!!!!!! WHEW !!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really started to think about giving up, since those feedings were a struggle that was stressful to us both, and I didn't want to go back to that.

Incidentally, I changed my remaining 4 hatchlings to coco substrate from paper towels 3 days ago. The other 3 took their meals immediately, too. The Pastel Enchi and Super Pastel Enchi
have always been good eaters, but gosh, they went from dead asleep curled up to grabbing their food within half a second !!!

The Super Emperor Pinstripe that did eat well, but was really tricky to get to accept rat fuzzies (rather then mice) took her rat fuzzy within a second as well.

I wonder now, if substrate could have possibly made a difference ???

Either way, I'm so happy