Crazy pastel eats ANYTHING! PICS

So my recently adopted pastel is ravenous and wants to eat all the time. I found out that she is about 7 years old and only weighs in at 1300 grams so I honestly can't blame her. Poor baby! She tagged and constricted me for 5 minutes last week (totally my fault of course....I was feeding everyone) so this week when I had to go in her cage I knew she would try to tag me so I put a towel in first thinking she would just snap at the towel and then I could grab her out and everything would be fine.....well.....not so much....

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/14/06/16/y6e7uryn.jpg

I figured she would let go pretty quickly since it wasn't even warm or moving or anything but a she didn't care! She started to try swallowing even! I poured water over her face and everything and she stopped trying to swallow but wouldn't let go for about 10 minutes! I finally put a live mouse in with her and she let go. She didn't eat the mouse though....wth lol. Anyway....next time I will just let myself get bitten. I'm thinking once I get her on a better feeding schedule and she realizes that food is not going to be in short supply she won't be so aggressive. Sorry for long post....it is funny now but a bit scary at the time!

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"She" doesn't look bad other than the towel in her mouth.
1300g is a good weight for anything over a couple years old so its not starving.

Why do you say "she" in quotation s? Thinking maybe due to size and age that she is a he? That's entirely possible. I did try popping and the spider male that came with her popped easily and showed his stuff. I tried her and it looked just like my females but you never know. I just think that she should be bigger than she is. When I got my first spider and pastel in 2011 I went up to the store where the guy had these two and they were already this same size back then. I would think they should really have grown somewhat. He sold them to the guy who gave them to me who said he didn't want to overfeed them and get them fat so idk.

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Originally Posted by eclipse3

Why do you say "she" in quotation s? Thinking maybe due to size and age that she is a he? That's entirely possible.

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That is always my first thought. ;)

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Originally Posted by eclipse3

so this week when I had to go in her cage

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You don't have to go in her cage during feeding. Just feed in the same enclosure...

I had to go in to clean and fill water etc.

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Originally Posted by eclipse3

I had to go in to clean and fill water etc.

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Ah...gotcha. That's pretty crazy. Glad it turned out okay.

Crack open tub just enough to introduce prey, allow her to strike and constrict, and while she's pre-occupied, gently pull the tub out a little further to spot clean and change water? Might help if you have a spare water dish to just swap it out. I have a couple snakes that actually don't mind me carefully lifting them out of a dirty tub and into a spare clean one while they're "killing" their ratsicles, that way everything is fresh and clean with me only having had to disturb them for the three seconds it takes to move them, then I can just slide the new clean tub into their spot in the rack like nothing ever happened.

I switched her to a tub last night and today she was very interested in everything I was doing but didn't try any nipping at me. I picked her up and held her for quite awhile so I think it was just her being super hungry. So yeah, definately wait til she's full to clean lol!

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sometimes pythons just get themselves into a bad situation and have to swallow something they really dont want to swallow.

the teeth are all tilted inwards, so when they bite something that isnt food but that gets caught in the teeth, there might be trouble.

a while back ive seen a documentary about an island full of snakes where lots of migratory birds come through, and snakes hunt for birds. one snake tried to get one, but ended up with a mouthful of feathers. the big, sturdy feathers, probarbly from the tail, the bird clearly couldnt fly anymore after the encounter. so the snake had a bunch of long sturdy feathers in its mouth sideways, sticking out both sides, and really tried to get rid of them. with yawning, and by rubbing the head backwards against a tree trunk. it didnt work. that snake looked really frustrated and helpless. finally the snake managed to move some of the feathers to the side and folded the rest and swallowed the whole thing.

the same mechanism also results in accidents where snakes eat themselves, or attempt to eat another snake that is too large for them, or otherwise perish while trying to ingest a food item that is too large. once the 4 rows of teeth at the top and the 2 rows of teeth at the bottom are gripping something that is not an appropriate food item, there can be trouble.