I don't she understands how she is suppose to eat food...

I recently got a new female red tail boa in october and she is an amazing eater!!! The problem?

Every time I feed her she eats her food tail first. However things changed today. Today she decied to eat her food sideways. Now she has a huge lump in her and I am honestly expecting regurgitate it :/

Any tips on how to get her to eat properly?? Do any of your snakes do this?

I'm afraid that you won't be able to "train" your snake how to "properly" get down a meal. I highly doubt that she will regurge her latest meal and you seem to be worrying a lot about nothing. The fact that you are worried shows that you care, which is a good thing, but I would just let her do her thing and I have no doubt that she'll be fine.

At least 1/10 my boa will try to eat his food from the middle folded in half. Once he gets a hold of a spot, there's no letting go! He's going to eat it the way he has it, he doesn't let go and look for a head. It always takes him awhile this way, but he always gets it down, and it stays down. I wouldn't worry to much about yours, it will be fine.

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I had this problem with my BP he would try and eat it sideways for hours and then just leave it when he failed, I've noticed that if I heat the head a little warmer then the rest of the body he swallows head first it has worked for me for a while yet.. not sure if its 100% works with every snake but does for mine :)

There is nothing to worry about there :] My RT has done the same thing before, either she chews on it and moves it around to the head, or she just eats it sideways and is done with it. As far as I know it shouldn't hurt the snake because unless shes eating something super rock hard and sharp, I am pretty sure she'll be fine.

Best of luck to you and your Snake

~Kaala

Butt-first, head-first, sideways... My boa's eaten her food pretty much every way you could think that a snake could (or couldn't) eat. You've got a young boa, right? When you get her on rats, there's really not a way to eat those sideways, so she'll straighten herself out eventually. :) I had to feed my girl multiple mice when we first got her (we had to wait a month to go to a show and buy bulk rats) and they were small enough that she just folded them in half and ate them that way if she ended up grabbing it by the middle.

You could also offer the prey head-first (using tongs, just grab the mouse/rat by the scruff of the neck so that it's facing your boa) so that the head is the first thing she grabs if you're really worried. Odds are she'll end up eating it that way if that's where she grabs it.

I already knew I would be not be able train her haha. Although it would be rather interesting if I could! I am not worried about it. I would just rather not deal with a partially digested mouse. However seeing as she hasn't already and you guys say she probably wont then I am not worried about that either. I don't think I ever got bad advice from anyone on this site before!

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Originally Posted by ididnessie

I recently got a new female red tail boa in october and she is an amazing eater!!! The problem?

Every time I feed her she eats her food tail first. However things changed today. Today she decied to eat her food sideways. Now she has a huge lump in her and I am honestly expecting regurgitate it :/

Any tips on how to get her to eat properly?? Do any of your snakes do this?

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Bob once ate a really huge jumbo rat sideways and looked deformed, afterwards.

He was fine.

The 'weird lump' was gone in 24 hours.

I wouldn't worry about it.

:)

I try to present the food face-first with the head warmer than the body but 9 times of 10, all the 'constricting' and carrying on usually means it ends up wrong ways anyhow.

I've had the most success with waiting until the Boas are looking the other way and lay the rat on their deck so that they notice it shortly thereafter and don't go through all the 'killing' jazz.

They'll just slither over and eat it.

I just had to wait mine mine to grow out of that phase, she figured it out eventually, and never regurged. The lumps were pretty comedic though.