Very strange/gross feedind story....

yesterday a very strange event occured during feeding time. I thawed the mouse like usual and put my bp into his feeding tank. I held the mouse with long tweezers and he struck at it almost instantly, the usual. But then, as he started to constrict it, the mouses's stomach burst open and the intestines plopped out. Ohh man was i suprised and grossed out. I tought maybe my bp would drop the mouse and not eat it. But he began to swallow it. when he got to the lower half of the mouses body, the mouses guts were just hanging out of the pythons mouth and he still gulped them up. :bleh: wow i felt sick but worried about my python. has this ever happened to anyone? this wont cause any problems right?

it happened to me on Friday. it was SO nasty, i had been chewing food when i walked over to Pandora's tank to see if she ate.. i wasnt really paying attention until i opened the lid and got a noseful of rat gut smell. i almost spit the food out that i had in my mouth and came SO CLOSE to throwing up.

its fine for the snake, dont worry. it happens all the time. maybe you thawed it too warm?? i know sometimes the rats/mice i have are squishier than others.

in any case, the snakes ok. im sure it didnt taste very well... ewwwwww

It happens from time to time and doesn't hurt the snake. The two causes associated with this are re-freezing of the prey or over-warming it. It can be thawed and re-frozen before it gets to you so you may not even know if this is an issue.

Just to add to marlas comments , it can happen with frozen animals that have problably been in the freezer to long, the skin gets a little freezer burnt and weak and POP!. I would consider finding a better source for frozen feeders seeing how the two most likely causes are refrozen and old frozen

WOW. I don't see why you guys put your selfs though it. I just get live and stun them. The whole freezing and thawing thing is just too much for me. Only thing I deal with is the mice bleeding out of there noses and blood getting everywhere. I really couldn't do the whole guts everywhere.

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Originally Posted by TONYDM41684

WOW. I don't see why you guys put your selfs though it. I just get live and stun them. The whole freezing and thawing thing is just too much for me. Only thing I deal with is the mice bleeding out of there noses and blood getting everywhere. I really couldn't do the whole guts everywhere.

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personally, i would rather clean up rat guts than kill a mouse by smashing its head against a wall.

ick... i love animals too much. if the rats already dead, then im ok with it. definately couldnt kill one...

Well.....we know what I do so I think I better just stay outa this one before I get reamed again. Heh.
EyelashViper

stunning isn't that bad.....sometimes if you get the rat just right, it is completely knocked out momentarily, and if your snake takes it right away, it never really even knows what happened to it!

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Originally Posted by elevatethis

stunning isn't that bad.....sometimes if you get the rat just right, it is completely knocked out momentarily, and if your snake takes it right away, it never really even knows what happened to it!

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rats can kinda hard to get "stunned" sometimes, mice it isn't so bad to do PK, but even i have the occasionally trouble properly stunning a rat.

yeah, my bp takes way too long to eat her prey so i am pretty positive anything that was stunned would wake up long before she was done sizing it up and playing with it. i stick to f/t myself. it is easiest and most convenient for me.