Breaking up a feeding?

[jeffjr464]

lucky grabbed his dinner today and it started to bite him so i grabbed it's head with tongs and stopped it before it hurt him, he didn't get it so its still in his cage should i leave it in so he can try again?

[JLC]

I'm not sure I've got the whole picture of what happened. The snake struck the rodent....but because the rodent started to get a bite in, you intervened and prevented the rodent from biting the snake. Then the snake let go?? Is the rodent alive or dead at this point?


If it's dead...it won't hurt to leave it in there for awhile, and see if the snake calms down enough to decide to eat. But if the rodent is still alive, get it out of there. It's now freaked out and on the defensive and could seriously hurt your snake....especially if your snake is no longer interested in eating it....which is likely the case if it didn't eat it in the first place.

And if the snake does not eat the rodent, either because it lost interest, or because you took it out.....don't bother trying to feed the snake again until its next regularly scheduled feeding day. It won't hurt it to miss this meal.

[Nate]

I had to do that a few weeks ago. I use a human heat pad to get my rodents warm...so I put the rodent in a bag, on top of the heat pad...it got warm and I pulled the rodent out of the bag and put it on top of the bag...I opened up my snakes enclosure and before I was even able to see her (the tub top was blocking my view from her), she struck and coiled up around the heat pad..TOTALLY missing the rat....hehe..of course I unplugged it quickly, and proceeded to wrestle her off the heat pad....she eventually found the rat and went munchy munchy...

do what you think is best. You can attempt to feed again, but if she refuses, then just let her be till next week

[bearhart]

I feed live and lately I've been moving towards feeding multiple small prey items. I find the prey dies much quicker and it much less effective when actually struggling. Based on the size of my snake and the amount the mouse can actually open his mouth it would be like a person trying to bite something like, say, an elephants leg. At best you could nibble on some skin. Add in the fact you're being strangled and you would probably not be able to get anything off.

Also, this isn't what most people recommend, but I feed in a seperate tub. One reason I like it is that it is easy to arrange things so the strike always occurs over a flat, unobstructed area and lands very close to the head. I'm not the most experienced snake owner but by now I've watched about 35 live feeds and never has the mouse even ended up in a position where it could even attempt to bite my snake.

[jeffjr464]

the mouse is still alive, they have gone to their corners lol, im keeping an eye on it, i'm betting he takes it tonight in the dark,gotta love those ambushes, oh yea its only a hopper so im not too worried about it, now that i think about it i should have just let it hang on till it died but oh well,no damage to the snake i don't think the mouse can get through his scales. if the mouse did damage a scale would it disappear in a couple sheds?

[bearhart]

based on photos of rescues I've seen snakes have a good ability to heal. I think you would have to do more than just damage a scale. I'm guessing it would be similar to a person in that they'd have to take out a significant chunk of flesh to leave a scar. Unless its a "pedigree" type snake then a small scar prolly isn't a big deal. We all have a few.

In/out of enclosure feeding argument aside, I think that minimizing the obstructions in the eating area is a good idea. This prevents tempting the snake to strike from odd angles. I try to arrange things so the snake and mouse start in their corners (literally), then I ring the bell and yell "fight!", and usually the mouse walks over to the snake's mouth, pries it open, and forces his head in. Ok, maybe I'm exaggerating. But, starting the snake in the corner makes it almost certain that the mouse will walk straight up to it allowing a nice clean strike. Except for a couple of times, mine only has to strike a distance of 2 inches or less and, often, only an inch or less. I've found that any strike that lands in the forward half of the mouse tends to leave the mouse's head pinned very close to the coils, depriving it of the room necessary to turn its head to bite.

[Ginevive]

Dangling a rat so that its face is directly pointing at the snake is the Wrong way to feed live. Drop the rat in broadside, let the snake strike at it while it's roaming the cage; watch closely until rat is fully dead. It is so easy to prevent.

[jeffjr464]

who said anything about dangling? i put a hopper mouse in, not a rat, and let him hunt it down, i wasn't holding the mouse ,my ball is starting to go into blue so when he struck out he hit the backside of the mouse and wrapped it, the mouse tried to bite him so i kept it's head away from my snake, and that broke up the feeding,no biggie,oh yea i took it out after a couple of hours and put it back in the feeder cage, i checked out lucky, the mouse nibbled on some of the dead skin he's gonna shed anyday, like 2 little marks in the old skin

[Gooseman]

after a couple of hours? you should really only have the prey in there max 20 mins if its alive...

[Purrrfect9]

Snake's scales are a lot more delicate than what you would think, and it's no where near as tough as an elephant hide. As far as leaving a live mouse in overnight, it's not a good idea to ever leave live prey with any snake unattended, unless it's a pinkie mouse/ pinkie rat. I'm assuming that your snake is still pretty young if he's only eating a hopper mouse, so that means that the scale/skin is going to be even more delicate than an adult BP's. If this were to happen to me, I wouldn't want to leave a rat/mouse, that are notorious for chewing through wood and plastic (gosh, how would that turn out against soft scales?) unattended overnight with my BP's. Just my