feeder size question

hello all

our first bp, vernon, obtained from PCPC (in canada) ate a hopper yesterday. vernon is around 2 feet long, i suppose. largest girth at mid body is around an inch and a half. my question is this. the hopper left no "visible" lump in his body. of course as coursed from his head to his mid body, one could see the outline of the hopper vaguely, but then i saw him this morning, and it was like he didnt eat at all. no evidence of the lump. is the hopper too small? i never kept a bp. i did have a corn and i know rule of thumb for those is the 1.5 times the head diameter rule, with a visible lump seen for about 24 H right? should i try something bigger?

thanks.

ed in toronto

Ed,

Welcome to the site - hope we can be of help!

You can generally go for something equal in girth to the thickest part of the BPs body - a (typical) hopper may be a tad small - how was it in proportion to your BP's girth?

thanks for the reply. my dilemma is this. i just recently purchased these f/t hoppers and i dont want them to go to waste (although they are just 4 more...every dollar counts!). i did see some try to feed 2 mice at a time. if i do this, do i lay them one at a time or both at once and is this a good idea? thanks for the help everyone. we are truly enjoying vernon. we will try to handle him later today.

ed in toronto

Give him a good 48 hours after eating to digest his meal... Then handle away! :)

oh yes that is for sure. the question on feeding is for next week's feed. any thoughts on that?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by junji98

oh yes that is for sure. the question on feeding is for next week's feed. any thoughts on that?

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If they prey item is too small (hopper mice are usually fairly small for most bp's) then offer him two. The plus size is that you'll get rid of them faster that way.. and none go to waste! :)

Welcome to the forum Ed and congrats on acquiring Vernon the BP. Hopper mice do seem a bit small so I'd go with offering two each week and using up the four you have on hand then going to a nice adult mouse once per week till your BP is ready for more. To feed multiples just offer the first as you normally do and once your snake has it down into it's body cavity offer the next one nicely warmed up as well. Sometimes they get a bit confused having a second prey offered so you might have to do the zombie mouse dance on the tongs to encourage the strike on the second prey. Usually though if they are hungry it doesn't take much encouragement LOL.

Just a note:


I started feeding 2 weanlings to some of my bigger snakes in order to give them enough food... the second time I open the tub I have to watch out, because they are expecting that second course! :)

thank you very much for the input. i will try that next week. i have to admit though, it still spooks me, this striking thing...we used to have a small corn and he never really struck. he just sort of swallowed the fuzzy. very tame like. the first time vernon struck, my sons and i were startled (to put it mildly)...:)

but he is way to cool...!

thanks again!

ed in toronto

Yeah, I hadfirst seen my brother's snow corn eat, it was like a gentle swallowing of a fuzzy, My BP Stewie was on a little hunger strike then, when I put in the mouse a couple days after his shed he waited until it explored close enough and struck/coiled him in less than a millisecond. If I had blinked I would have missed it. It ws indeed very very cool.