A Mu'allaq narration (broken chain from the side of the Hadith collector, i.e. al-Bukhari) - but connected by Ahmad - has:

"and he used to them one by one."

وَفِي رِوَايَةٍ مُعَلَّقَةٍ ‏-وَوَصَلَهَا أَحْمَدُ‏-: وَيَأْكُلُهُنَّ أَفْرَادًا [1]‏ .‏