How much resistance is normal?

[Joci]

Hello for the second time today

As I mentioned in my previous thread, today was feeding day for Fírnen. However, instead of feeding him my last fuzzie mouse, I decided to go to my local pet store and buy some f/t small mice.

I weighed the mouse and it was 7 grams. This weight sounded perfect to me, as Fírnen is currently at about 71 grams. So then I thawed and heated the mouse for him, and he took it immediately.

He swallowed it in a few minutes, throughout this process I was worried because I had never watched him eat something that big before. I'm almost 100% sure that I'm just being paranoid but I still want to ask, how much resistance is normal when a bp is swallowing a meal?

[Starscream]

That meal was perfectly sized for him. Honestly, the first time I fed Maze f/t it took her nearly 15 minutes to get around a leg that had basically frozen sticking straight out. They'll figure it out eventually, and they get better at it with practice. Now if a limb's sticking out she's figured out to wiggle it around until she gets her jaw around it just right, and it takes less than five minutes.

TLDR; how long it takes them to swallow doesn't really matter, just so long as the prey size is proportional to the snake (10%-15% is the guideline I follow, but they can easily swallow 20% of their own body weight or more).

[PokeyTheNinja]

They can probably swallow more than we are aware, but it's safe to stay in the guidelines. I feed 10-15% of my snakes' weight.

[Joci]

That meal was perfectly sized for him. Honestly, the first time I fed Maze f/t it took her nearly 15 minutes to get around a leg that had basically frozen sticking straight out. They'll figure it out eventually, and they get better at it with practice. Now if a limb's sticking out she's figured out to wiggle it around until she gets her jaw around it just right, and it takes less than five minutes.

TLDR; how long it takes them to swallow doesn't really matter, just so long as the prey size is proportional to the snake (10%-15% is the guideline I follow, but they can easily swallow 20% of their own body weight or more)

Thanks for replying! I honestly made this post to have someone like you convince me of what I already knew lol. It's just a bit intimidating to see that tiny noodle neck swallow anything really ��

[Sunnieskys]

I did the same thing with Odyn. See the slit under the chin? And BP can take a bigger prey than most. No worries! They can handle it. And the size is perfect. You did good!

[Craiga 01453]

You could safely go with a 10 gram mouse and your 71 gram BP could handle it no problem. The are incredible animals and seeing eat still amazes me.
They can get down some pretty big prey, but just because they can doesn't mean they should. Stay in that 10-15% range and you'll be fine.

[Joci]

I did the same thing with Odyn. See the slit under the chin? And BP can take a bigger prey than most. No worries! They can handle it. And the size is perfect. You did good!

Thanks! All of these replies are helping a lot lol.

[Godzilla78]

I have seen Ragnarok kill and eat a medium rat when he was still a sub-adult/adult size. It was amazing. He had to use his entire body from tip of the tail to his head to wrap around and constrict the animal! He shoved it in his piehole, and his neck stretched out to ungodly proportions!

The most amazing part, was that these were live rats he was taking out! I know some will say it was dangerous, that the rat could have injured him and it was over-feeding, but I didn't know better at the time....and GUESS WHAT? HE KILLED IT AND ATE IT JUST FINE. It was a bit extreme though, probably 20% of his weight at the time.

I don't do that any more, lest the rat bite a hole in my snakes.