Poorly angled mouse

So it's feeding day, and since I currently have just a few small mice left over from the woman I bought my bp I've been feeding her multiples to use them up. Next week I plan on purchasing an appropriately sized rat for her meal. Anyhow, I know they can take prey around the width of their body or a little bigger, but she struck at this one mouse and tucked his head to his chest basically, then proceeded to swallow him like that. See the photo, it just looks painful since his little nose is pretty much poking straight out from her throat [emoji51] this won't cause any harm, will it? https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...574a7550e1.jpg


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Originally Posted by purpleroan

So it's feeding day, and since I currently have just a few small mice left over from the woman I bought my bp I've been feeding her multiples to use them up. Next week I plan on purchasing an appropriately sized rat for her meal. Anyhow, I know they can take prey around the width of their body or a little bigger, but she struck at this one mouse and tucked his head to his chest basically, then proceeded to swallow him like that. See the photo, it just looks painful since his little nose is pretty much poking straight out from her throat [emoji51] this won't cause any harm, will it? https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...574a7550e1.jpg


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In my small amount of experience owning a ball, I’ve learned that they won’t take food thats too big, or try to swallow something that they can’t actually swallow. If it takes it, it’s most likely totally fine. If it didn’t want to eat it, it wouldn’t take it or just reject it while trying to swallow. Hope this helps.


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Originally Posted by M.C.757

In my small amount of experience owning a ball, I’ve learned that they won’t take food thats too big, or try to swallow something that they can’t actually swallow. If it takes it, it’s most likely totally fine. If it didn’t want to eat it, it wouldn’t take it or just reject it while trying to swallow. Hope this helps.


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You will see Limbs or other things pprotrude sometimes while its in the neck area... As you said you want to feed the thickness of the Body. A Ball Python has a small head so do not go bigger than the body. Snakes will in fact try to eat larger prey and it can cause problems thats why we use a reference.
I had a Ball Python basically choke because I was use to feeding Burms and it kept trying to start over, it scared the hell out of me and I've fed correctly and smaller since.
They will also regurgitate a prey item thats to big, and you want to avoid that at all costs.


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Snakes can and sometimes will eat prey items too large for them to digest. This will often lead to a regurge because they simply cannot digest the prey item as well as the prey item makes them too slow and basically defenseless if they were to be approached by a predator. Fortunately, it's far more common for wild snakes because they have to be far more opportunistic than our captive pets.
A 31 pound burm was just recorded found with a 35 pound deer inside it, which it regurged. Proof they WILL eat food larger than they should.

But, to answer the OPs question, your snake will be fine. Once it gets past the throat it'll disappear in the wider part of the snake and digest just fine. Nothing to worry about, OP.