food isnt too big if a snake can get it down...

i was just emailed by someone looking to buy my 8-9 week old male rats i want to get rid of. he asked why i am getting rid of them so i told him they are too big for my bp. in his reply he said that a bp wont kill something unless its capable of eating it and if he can get it down, then its not too big.

is this true? what are the risks of feeding your snake something thats too large?

when people say you should feed your snake rodents that are the same width as the snakes widest point. is this when the rodent is sitting normally or when its stretched out such as when a snake is swallowing it?

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Originally Posted by ch312

i was just emailed by someone looking to buy my 8-9 week old male rats i want to get rid of. he asked why i am getting rid of them so i told him they are too big for my bp. in his reply he said that a bp wont kill something unless its capable of eating it and if he can get it down, then its not too big.

is this true? what are the risks of feeding your snake something thats too large?

when people say you should feed your snake rodents that are the same width as the snakes widest point. is this when the rodent is sitting normally or when its stretched out such as when a snake is swallowing it?

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Sometimes snakes eat things that are too big, they get regurgitated or in some rare cases it can kill the snake. And there really is no real need to feed bps huge meals when you don't have to.

prolapse can happen and that's a bummer situation.

Should we give him a picture of the burmese that ate the alligator? I say he got it down... and it was TOO big...

I typically measure the rats I get by how wide they're hips are when stretched out. As in when they're swallowing like you said.

There are a lot of dangers to feeding too large a prey item to an animal. You can look at risks of broken ribs, broken spine, intestinal damage, and tears...even constipation. As well as that, if you feed a live prey animal too large, the animal could do some serious damage in retaliation. Scratches, tears, muscle strain; all good possibilities.

Intestinal strain and damage is a good point to look at, and the stress it causes to the animal. A lot of energy is put into absorbing and digesting the animal. An animal too large would cause damage to the intestinal track through minor tears, scratches, strain, and unneeded stress. It may put the animal off feed, due to it.

Giant's may be a different scenario,....but we're talking BP's here :P Even then, it depends on species.