Feeding / Aggression question

I get this a lot sometimes, especially working at my LPS.

Had a customer today ask me about feeding his 3 ft RTB four adult mice once a week. The snake's girth is about that of a golf ball. I personally thought that is more than plenty for a snake that size to eat in one sitting every week, and told the guy this.

He says, "Well, if I feed her any less, she gets mean and starts striking."

This isn't the first time I've heard someone tell me this, especially in cases involving a snake eating more than what is ideally suggested in one sitting.

Personally, I think this is bullcrap. First of all, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say I don't think snakes can count. Secondly, if the snake is indeed acting more aggressively, I suspect there's another factor involved besides just quantity of prey items during a feeding.

Whats everyone elses' thoughts? Has any of you actually experienced this?

I wouldn't doubt it, I guess. My corn is always ready to strike if she doesn't feel 'full.' But that's just when I open her enclosure. Once I pick her up and she realizes it's not feeding time, she's fine. I don't have any experience with RTBs though.

Why doesn't he feed rats instead? It'd be cheaper.

well i heard that a lot too.. but for 1.. if his RTB is 3 feet.. his rtb should be on small to medium rats.. mine is almost 4 and chowing down large rats.. does he handle the rtb often?

next time you see the guy give him a small rat.. and tell him stick to 1 item per feeding.. as big as the girth..

I also believe the snake's aggression is unrelated to the amount of food. Usually after my snakes eat, they will hide and not move much for a day or two until they have digested. After that they may come out and move around a bit, and then they usually defacate. What your customer was seeing was probably "digesting periods" several times in a row due to the frequent feeding.

Tell him to get some good leather gloves and learn to handle the snake, instead of just stuffing him with mice! :rolleyes:

I don't know. My cal king suddenly couldn't be trusted not to randomly latch on to a unsuspecting limb or finger. I didn't handle him for months and couldn't figure out why my favorite snake was suddenly unhandlable. And after not being handle as often he started striking every time we opened his cage.

Then one day he got double fed due to a schedule mistake. He was suddenly okay with my hand in his tank. I've been feeding him double ever since. He's easy to handle again. I feed every 10 days so he has plenty of time to digest, defecate and not be 'overfull' before i handle him. It's like magic. He's fine, doesn't shed too often or act like he's growing too fast so I'm gonna keep doing it.

Mostly though I say handle your snake gently and OFTEN. Even well fed snakes will bite if they're not used to handling. And over feeding is NOT an answer to taming a mean snake.

Just sometimes underfeeding is a problem. Owners need to make sure they're increasing the size/amount of food as the animal grows.