Horror Stories

I wanna hear some of everyone's personal feeding horror stories of feedings gone wrong. From extremities being ripped off of mice to a bite in the wrong direction.

I'll start:

I have 2. The first one is that when I was feeding my BP, I was holding onto the tail to tight and it ripped off. Not bad.

My second one is whats happening up stairs right now. About 5 minutes ago I fed my snake. The f/t mouse had a little blood on it but that wasn't unusual. So I dangled it in. My BP just got off a "Hunger Strike" last week so he was eager to get eating. He grabbed it and squeezed. A hole burst in the mouse's side and it started bleeding. Followed by intestines leaking out. The intestines never left the body but there's blood on the inside of the tank I gotta go clean out. I don't have any words to explain how extremely mortified I am.


*UPDATE*
I just went upstairs and checked on him. There's no blood in or on the tank, there is definitely blood on him. Which is a bad thing, because blood is one of the top bacteria harvesters there is. I don't when the next chance will be for me to take him out and clean him/the tank up because I don't know when he'll stop being in feeding mode. (He was in it all last week, hopefully he'll be done now.)

Share your stories please. And does any one have any advise on how to prevent this in the future?

when i first got my snake i was thawing out a mouse fuzzy. the bag had a hole in it so it was soaked and nasty. when i picked it up with tongs the skin ripped a lil and when she struck and curled the skin ripped more and all types of guts and nasties fell out. she ate it then i cleaned

I got a rat that had maybe thawed out before my supplier put it in his freezer, so when I thawed it out under the heat lamp it was a little stanky. Nothing worrying though, so on with the show, right? Well, Baby hit that thing so hard the tail broke off in the tongs, and when he squeezed it one of the back legs popped open. It was disgusting and it smelled like the burning of a thousand suns made of garbage, but he wolfed it down in three minutes and went back into his rock. I scrubbed the whole tank.

Feeding babies F/T newborn pinky rats is the worst. Most of the time they just explode and everything leaks out everywhere. Probably worse than that was when I was feeding my biggest female BP last year a F/T rat. She always needs to be coaxed to take them but when she finally strikes she strikes hard. She jerked the rat out of my hand so hard and fast that I couldnt let go fast enough. I actually degloved half the tail and was holding the tail skin when she coiled the rat. I looked at the rat and saw the raw degloved tail bone and was a little creeped out to say the least.

I had two gory shows in one night.

First, one of my small females wasn't into her meal much. I had to reheat and reoffer a couple times. After the second time I come back to look in on her and the rat is still there except she chewed on it so much she skinned it on one side and I could see the ribcage plus more. I took the deformed corpse back to the blow dryer to reheat and she got it down that time...

Later, one of the females refused again so I took the rat I offered her and put it in front of my big girl who already ate a small rat. She snatched it so hard the back-skin ripped off and stayed in the hemostats and the rat had a large bloody patch.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Foschi Exotic Serpents

Feeding babies F/T newborn pinky rats is the worst. Most of the time they just explode and everything leaks out everywhere. Probably worse than that was when I was feeding my biggest female BP last year a F/T rat. She always needs to be coaxed to take them but when she finally strikes she strikes hard. She jerked the rat out of my hand so hard and fast that I couldnt let go fast enough. I actually degloved half the tail and was holding the tail skin when she coiled the rat. I looked at the rat and saw the raw degloved tail bone and was a little creeped out to say the least.

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That's some serious interactive gore. Nice. I need an unsure demented smiley here.

Tonight a very cute black and white "jersey cow" looking mouse was devoured by my piebald. He squeezed so tight that I thought the eyes of the mouse were going to pop out!

For the OP, how did you thaw/heat the prey that had the guts burst? Did you thaw it only one time or did you re-freeze it at a different time?

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Originally Posted by CA cowgirl

Tonight a very cute black and white "jersey cow" looking mouse was devoured by my piebald. He squeezed so tight that I thought the eyes of the mouse were going to pop out!

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Aww, your story if very "Hello Kitty".

I overheated a F/T mouse (almost-boil water, put mouse in that -- I no longer do it that way), presented it to my BP which struck unusually hard, causing the belly to blow out and sending mouse intestines all over my face... It was one of those mortifying moments.

I had one of those last week.

I am just switching my largest BP babies to F/T rats instead of mice. One of my girls had not eaten the time before due to being in shed, so she was pretty doggone hungry.

I offered her a rat, which she hit instantly. When she relaxed her coil, she started eating it rear end first since that was closest to her mouth. I tried to help her out by turning it around, but she wasn't having any of that and coiled the rat so tightly you couldn't even see it. She got the tail down okay, but naturally the rear legs got stuck on each side of her jaw. After trying for several minutes to just swallow it, in her hunger and fury, she jammed the rat head first against the bottom of the tub and proceeded to shove and shove and shove until I thought she was going to break her jaws apart, but she finally managed to shove hard enough to dislocate the rats legs and it went down. I watched her like a hawk, I was so scared she'd hurt herself. She yawned for a solid 24 hours afterward, but she got it down and it stayed down. Last night, she hit her rat just as hard, but then politely nosed it around until she found the head and ate it properly. I guess one time doing it the hard way was enough for her.

Gale

A couple years ago I was feeding an adult female red tailed boa. I was holding a large rat above her head like I always do and she struck at it. She missed and I dropped the rat. Without thinking I reached in to regrab the rat and she struck my hand perfectly and started to coil. I withdrew my hand carefully and she then coiled her backside around the center top divider of the 75 gallon aquarium. So now im stuck next to the tank with a 9 foot snake crushing my arm and there is blood everywhere.

I scream up to my wife who is terrified of snakes to come help me. She flat out refuses to come downstairs.
After 30 min of my yelling she comes downstairs and hands me my weightlifting gloves. I get a glove on and proceed to remove the snakes toothy grip on my hand. The episode took about 30 min and made a huge mess of blood.
After I cleaned the wound the bite wasn’t that bad. But boy did it hurt.

One time I fed my Bp and when he struck a mouse and a couple of his teeth went into the mouses eye, so there is a puddle of blood next to a squirming mouse(i was feeding live) The mouse eye ball is split open, blood gushing, but the BP ate it no prob, that my horror story.

You guys are sick :P

My snakes aren't savages, they use forks and steak knives.

I don't have any nasty stories other than eyes popping out :puke:

Well, when Anubis was young (under a year) he took a really bad rat bite. He struck and the rat managed to bite deeply into his neck, about an inch down from his head. I'm lucky it was only in the muscle. I left the wound alone mostly and it healed up on its own.




A few months ago, Ceasar was in his cage with a live rat (he is the only one I can't switch to f/t). I was sitting across the room and I hear a thump. I peek into the cage and see the rat is fine but there is some blood in the cage. I put the rat back into the rat cage and looked Ceasar over but I can't find where the couple of drops of blood came from. Fast forward a couple of days and I notice what is wrong, the very tip of his tail had been nearly cut off and was dead. Apparently, he struck the rat because it bit him :( . I removed the dead tip and proceeded to clean the wound for several days until I was sure it was infection free and I put neo on it until it closed it up.

It is healing nicely now. I can't believe I didn't notice it at first, I thought maybe the rat had been defensively struck and bled a little.

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Originally Posted by Darkice

A couple years ago I was feeding an adult female red tailed boa. I was holding a large rat above her head like I always do and she struck at it. She missed and I dropped the rat. Without thinking I reached in to regrab the rat and she struck my hand perfectly and started to coil. I withdrew my hand carefully and she then coiled her backside around the center top divider of the 75 gallon aquarium. So now im stuck next to the tank with a 9 foot snake crushing my arm and there is blood everywhere.

I scream up to my wife who is terrified of snakes to come help me. She flat out refuses to come downstairs.
After 30 min of my yelling she comes downstairs and hands me my weightlifting gloves. I get a glove on and proceed to remove the snakes toothy grip on my hand. The episode took about 30 min and made a huge mess of blood.
After I cleaned the wound the bite wasn’t that bad. But boy did it hurt.

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whaaaaaaat, no pictures!?

my 500 gram het albino male today was feeding. He thought he had killed the rat but it had some life left. as hes adjusting his head to start to swallow the rat it was crying and ate it the rest of the way. other than that havent had anything crazy happen unless it was with frozen thawed and my large sav monitor. He would bite so hard the mice or rat would burst.

I remember the date... July 28, 2008 and I've pulled a very large f/t white rat out of a plastic bag immersed in really hot water. I've got it on a pie tin plate so I can hit it with the hair dryer right before I feed it to my hungry adult male bp. I warm up the rat, step into the snake room, slide open the tub to see an interested snake, and as I'm reaching down with tongs and grabbing the big rat by the tail and holding it up over the tub --BLAM!-- It suddenly explodes like a gooey, intestine-y pinata---all over me, my face, the walls, floor, snake, rack. (Like I said, very large rat.) This certainly dimmed my enthusiasm but not the snake's, as he was covered with rat jam but anxious to eat. So I let him grab for the gusto--or gutso--and tried not to gag as I began cleaning up the mess and trying to do something about that smell. That lingering smell...

Learned alot that night about not overheating the rat.....

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Originally Posted by BallsUnlimited

my 500 gram het albino male today was feeding. He thought he had killed the rat but it had some life left. as hes adjusting his head to start to swallow the rat it was crying and ate it the rest of the way.

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That happened to me TWICE in the past couple weeks. Today, my adult normal hit a medium rat pretty hard but toward the rear end. Started eating it and I could see it gasping for air through the snake's neck. She must've noticed, because she let go and reconstricted.

The other time was with my ~200g male spider. He's a wimpy hitter/constrictor and just didn't go strong enough/long enough to choke out the rat pup. I noticed the pup wimpering as he was getting the head into his mouth. Not tooooo horrifying, but I'd rather not see them being eaten alive...

I had a rescue last year. that was really hungry after getting it starting to eat and all again. mistook my hand the day after I fed her as more food ( was checking for uneating rodents and other clean up issues. ) Any how she grabbed my hand( thumb right down the throat of the snakes0 and proced to constrict my hand and wrist area. I was fine wit hthis knowign she would let go at some point iand i just haveo clean my hand, I was not ready for the fact she was trying to dislocate my thub and was knawing on it while she was squeezing it . I end up worknig her free and using a pair of butter knives to unhook her teeth from my thumb with out doing damage to both of us. I then gave her a small live rat which she snapped right up and bashed around the cage in her anger ofnot getting some finger food.:rolleye2:

Starfire wins. Followed closely by Fire Eyes. Damn. I'm disturbed just reading about that. But don't let me stop you. Keep posting. Good lord. That sounds violent. I would like to appologize for not posting this in the "General Herps" section.

well when I did F/T...I put it on the back of the car for a few hrs to thaw in the sun. Hmmmmm live in AZ...it exploded...ick!!

There are a couple of times with Henry...who is a total goof ball. He grabbed the mouse by the butt...and was constricting...of course not kiling it because he was constricting the bottom half. It took so long for the poor mouse to die and when he finally let go the mouse was completely flat on the bottom half. Another time he squeezed so hard the poor little mouse had blood coming from the eyes. It was really gruesome and hard to watch.

All these live stories of the mouse being eaten alive or bleeding from his eyeballs. I'm not critisizing you, but that's why I don't feed live. I wouldn't be able to stand it.... I commend you for standing there and watching....

Well, I have a few, some just utterly stupid on my part.

#1: I was running late to work and I needed to feed my corn snake, the fuzzy hadn't thawed enough so I though "hey, I'll stick it in the microwave for a sec", 5 seconds and it still wasn't warmed up, so I put it in for another 5 seconds and I hear this loud "POP", open the microwave, and there's exploded mouse EVERYWHERE...smelled like chicken though....

#2: I was feeding Pretzle, my BP, and I had the mouse in the tongs, BP was in strike mode and my cat Demon took a leap at the tank trying to get the mouse. As I pushed Demon away, my hand dipped low just as BP went to strike the mouse, it was the first and only time my BP ever bit me and he instantly let go, but he hit one of those veins in between your finger joints, so I was bleeding like crazy for about 5 min while my mum ran around screaming.

#3: Both my BP and my corn had instances where the mice exploded as they "killed" them (I only feed pre-dead)

#4: One time my corn struck it's dinner and somehow decapitated it....

#5: and after the fact story- My BP took the biggest snake crap I'd ever seen and managed to get it stuck to the side of his tank and it dried and would not come off! This thing was almost 8" long...and smeary...it was so gross...

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Originally Posted by Freaky_Ferret

Well, I have a few, some just utterly stupid on my part.

#1: I was running late to work and I needed to feed my corn snake, the fuzzy hadn't thawed enough so I though "hey, I'll stick it in the microwave for a sec",

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Microwaves can cause hot spots, burn your snake on the inside. Your snake would have lasted until you got home from work.

After reading this thread, I now know I haven't seen anything as bad as I might have thought!

My only horror story is mostly horrific because it was my first snake, and it was only his second or third feeding. I was feeding a f/t fuzzy and he struck hard and caused a huge explosion of mouse guts out the back end of the mouse. It went all over his hide, his water dish, his tank, himself. Gross. I was relieved to learn that it was a fairly uncommon occurence, since it hasn't happened since then.

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Originally Posted by zantedeschia

Microwaves can cause hot spots, burn your snake on the inside. Your snake would have lasted until you got home from work.

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No need to criticize, that's not what this thread is about. Obviously that was the first and last time for that.

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Originally Posted by Freaky_Ferret

My BP took the biggest snake crap I'd ever seen and managed to get it stuck to the side of his tank and it dried and would not come off! This thing was almost 8" long...and smeary...it was so gross...

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8"... good lord....

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Originally Posted by Freaky_Ferret

No need to criticize, that's not what this thread is about. Obviously that was the first and last time for that.

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Was merely a comment, not a criticism.


Sadly, I have no gory stories to tell.

Well, my daughter, when she first got her snake, would bring a pot of water to boil. Then toss the frozen fuzzy in the very hot water and leave it 10 minutes. Then couldn't figure out why her snake wouldn't eat, tho the poor thing tried, it would chew on the overcooked fuzzy, make a mess of it, before spitting it out. But that was her, not me.

I've been bit a couple times feeding but nothing exciting or gushing blood.

I just had a horrible experience Eco earth coconut bedding, my snake struck at her mouse, missed and got a horrible mouth full of this stuff and couldn’t work it out. She literally chocked on the stuff it was stuck like paste to the bottom and top of her mouth and completely clogged her glottis. I will never use this again.
She's doing fine now although a little pissed about the mouth rinsing but she went back in ate the mouse amazingly enough

I have to agree, the two stories of rat/mouse parts exploding in their faces....doesn't get grosser than that! ** makes gagging sound**

I've had rats "pop" but the grossest and saddest thing was when some one gave us a sick gerbil he wanted us to feed off to our Berm aka garbage disposal. Well, we were used to feeding f/k mice but have never stunned a gerbil so I told my fiance to stun it the same way. He grabbed it by the tail and swung it to stun it on a hard surface and as he came down the gerbil flew across the room and he was left with the de-gloved tail skin in his hand. We immediately gave the gerbil to the snake to humanly constrict.

It is gruesome and thankfully this has happened few and far between. I do have a funny horror story. Prior to getting our critter cage....I went to the reptile store to pick up feeders. I probably had like 5 in the paper bag. Came home...fed one to one of my snakes and dropped the bag. The mice went scattering everywhere....(woohoo were free type of thing) I was needless to say :O:O. Thankfully no bad words came out of my mouth as I had about 5 kids with me. They all took off to catch the mice. In the end we got them all but oye.... Believe or not ....mice on the loose totally freak me out. I am such a girly girl when it comes to them....lol But yet...I have 4 snakes...I know...goofey huh :rolleyes: