BP doesn't kill before eating live food

I bought sudoko around two months ago. She has eaten everytime I have fed her without any problems, but the last two feedings she has swolled her pinkies and fuzzies (once was with fuzzies, the other feeding was with pinkies) while they are still alive. She doesn't throw them up or seem to have any problems because of this but I just don't think its safe. I've tried her with frozen and she didn't really want anything to do with it. Sometimes she will bite and squeeze them but not fully kill them, I see them wiggling and making noise as she starts to swollow, other times she just swollows them with out even attempting to kill. I fed her earlier and she just bit one pinkie till it bled then left it laying there for a few minutes then swollowed it (It was still alive though). So my question is does anyone know why all of a sudden she does this and does anyone have any ideas to make her stop?

I don't know if this helps but she gets fed weekly.

Silly question but I need to ask. Are you talking pinkie and fuzzie mice or pinkie and fuzzie rats?

oh sorry, mice.

Have you tried prekilled or frozen/thawed?

At that size I dont think the baby would be doing too much damage to the snake, but its not a good habbit :)

I fed my baby boa a live fuzzie/hopper mouse (snack size)that my frog didn't take and he ate it tail first without constricting it.

Kishnah did it that way too, but she's outgrown the habit. When the prey got bigger, Kishnah started constricting it and killing it first, and then eating. Perhaps your snake will do it that way too. My guess is S knows the prey won't hurt, but once it gets bigger will start to kill.


I also would shake the prey very lightly (like struggling) once Kishnah struck and grabbed. That would encourage her to coil to keep it from "escaping".....this was beneficial when she'd get lazy and not wrap around it sometimes.

R

She's probably doing that because the prey is very small for her. How small is she? Usually a hopper mouse or small adult mouse is easy for even a baby BP to deal with so a pinkie or fuzzie mouse would be way too small. A lot of BP hatchlings can take rat pinks easily. Our milksnake who isn't a year old eats fuzzie mice LOL. Maybe consider moving up that mouse size a bit.

I'm just confused why folks are feeding pinky and fuzzy mice to their ball pythons anyway? Babies are perfectly capable of taking a hopper mouse that they would HAVE to kill, because a hopper certainly is not going to sit in one place and wait to be eaten alive. :confused:


My smallest '06 this season was 74 grams and was eating live hoppers her first few weeks with me and today at 112 grams is eating small adult mice with ease.

I went to The new repitile shop that just opened up down the street. I asked them about it and they told me I should start feeding her a adult mouse, so for the next feeding I'm going to try and see if it works.

I started her on pinkie mice because the reptile vet I took her to said that she should eat two a week. I personally thought they were a bit small so I opted for a fuzzie mouse, but those have been difficult to aquire :(

Thanks for all the suggestions, I appreciate it.

Well, more importantly - I want to see more pictures of your snake! From the picture in your avatar, she looks to have a very reduced pattern and I'm a sucker for reduced patterns! ;)