Ah, fantastic news! I came back from out of town today expecting to find my own set of nominate
jacksonii offspring, but fortunately that did not happen. I'm glad to see yours arrived well-- and 20 of them!
How is the mother doing? I suppose these are the first from your recently acquired group, correct? If so, this one arrived already gravid, no? Have you noticed any other copulation attempts among the rest of your group? And finally, how well did they do? As you know,
jacksonii jacksonii are notorious for being very difficult to acclimate. Did you lose any?
I'm excited to hear about your desire to document their progress via a blog-- I pledge to be an immediate subscriber! Additionally, if all goes well with my very-late-term female and the progeny, I hope we can talk about bloodline diversification. This subspecies is next to impossible to obtain as captive born and/or bred in the U.S., so every animal counts. I know Kent's female copulated and any potential offspring offer another crucial opportunity to diversify our genetics.
Finally,congratulations on your success. You're obviously doing something right if you've managed to acclimate (at least one) nominate
jacksonii, so the only thing I would do for the neonates is watch your temperature extremes (on both ends), isolate them in smaller groups (as already mentioned), and provide enough basking areas for the neonates utilize. Any basking area domination will be clear from the start, and will manifest itself in the weaker ones with a decreased appetite, stress coloration, etc. I would also say that my success rate with neonate
jacksonii has increased after departing from the use of tubs and instead switching to a screen-cage-only approach-- in groups of no more than 6 animals. Of course, this is my own experience and I am not discouraging experimentation. On the contrary. If you manage to have success with solid-wall enclosures, even better.
All the best,
Fabián
P.S. Benny... did I read that right? I think you owe me some (urgent) photos! You inglorious one! I'll be looking out for a new thread...
