Picture of my new member

[Garter_Gertie]

Maybe I've not mentioned before - thought I have - I don't breed and brumate like the rest of you diehards. This is based on what we do at the park. We/I let the length of days dictate to the snakes and allow them to slow down. But brumate, in the strictest sense of the word, nope. Don't do, not gonna do. We gradually taper off feeding as the snake(s) dictate and allow three, or four weeks before offering food again. But over all continue to offer food in increasingly longer periods until it's about once a month, once every 1.5 months. And then begin picking up - decrease the length of times between feedings - in Feb, March, April. Depending upon the wants of the snake. Neither I or the park have the means to lower temperatures to a set 65 or so and keep it there. We've a wood fire stove at the park we use to have the furnace run less often, and my place is so old all the hot air from below comes up here and to stay comfortable I keep windows open all year 'round. Even with it's like 20 or even zero.

So we do the best we can and let the snakes dictate to us.

[infernalis]

MK - Those snakes ate every other day or so last winter.

They may get ornery on you if they don't have supper

[Garter_Gertie]

Well, you can't prove it by the way Jeepers eats now! Again today Peepers pigged out with a night crawler and the last of the rasboras. And again Jeepers refused to eat.

I e-mailed the DMJ or whatever worm company that distributes to Wal-Mart and am awaiting an answer from them as to whether or not I'll be able to get night crawlers this winter. Not really too worried about P&J and Winnie since I can get guppies or rasboras or something like that, but if I get a Dekays... Well, *I* am NOT gonna be breeding slugs. NO SIR!

[Aundrea]

breed slugs LOL. I would not do that either. I just need to know how to breed earthworms so I can have some for Bennie for the winter. She seems happy now. Shes under a log curled up. She looks cute and happy and full lol. She ate a nice worm earler.

[infernalis]

The reason Gertie said that was I bred slugs last winter

[Aundrea]

Ohhhhh ok lol.

[anji1971]

Slugs are actually quite easy to breed. As long as they have a constant food supply and lots of moisture, they seem to grow in numbers rapidly. I did it for my Dekay's and by the spring I had to dump a whole pile out into the garden.
I would think breeding worms is much trickier.

[infernalis]

I have friends who run a fancy restaurant with a salad bar.

Access to unlimited greens, lettuce and so forth to feed the slugs proved helpful.

[Aundrea]

What would be easier to breed? Probably Dekays would need both to feed on eh?

[bio6464]

Aundrea...first of all welcome, nice to have you on board. I have 2 Dekayis and I feed them only worms. They love leaf worms and mine will gladly take red wigglers, even though some won't. Nightcrawlers can be too big...you may have to cut them up for these little guys. I put a couple of slugs in last week and my big brave snakes hid until I removed them. And before anyone asks they were small garden slugs, not big scary orange/yellow ones. They seem to prefer leaf worms over anything else, and the local bait store sells them for $3 for 30 of 'em.
Jerry