Not Constricting? Trying to get out? And other questions...

I'm in the middle of feeding Pandora a hopper mouse as I write this... tiny little thing, that mouse. Anyway, it was barely moving because I'm guessing it's almost a newborn, it's got hair but not very active, looks almost blind. I put the mouse in the tank and Pandora crawls up to it and very casually puts her mouth around the thing's head. I didn't even notice she had it in her mouth until I turned on the light. So she's got it in her mouth trying to swallow it and it's still alive!! She finally realizes it's not dead and tries constricting it but she doesn't have a good grip on it and eventually kills it and eats it... what's up with that? She's never done it before. I feed her live, so I'm not sure if when they're frozen BPs normally don't constrict or something?:confused:

For the last two nights, missy has been trying to crawl up her plant and push her way out of the tank. All of last night, for a good hour or so, she crawled up both her plants, hung on her hygrometer and tried everything in her power to nuzzle her way out of that tank. I haven't seen her do this before. She got so high up on her plant and desperate to get out at one point that she fell onto her log and scared herself and then continued on her little exploring journey. She's just over 20 inches in a standard 10 gallon tank so she's basically just a bit longer than the length of the front of the tank and I was told not to upgrade until it's about 2/3rds the length of the snake. I was planning on getting her a 20 gallon within the next week or so because I think she might be cramped in there. I've heard of snakes hurting themselves or flattening their noses from trying to push against the sides of the tank and I don't want her to hurt herself by falling again. She got out just over a week ago, and I know the only reason they make good escape artists is by exploring but she was hardcore trying to nuzzle her way out last night and I'm not quit sure what it could mean. Here's a picture from the night before
http://img126.imageshack.us/img126/4395/img00168od7.jpg

In addition to that, when my boyfriend and I took her out of the tank, to handle her for a bit because she clearly wanted to get out, she was extremely active. Moving a lot faster than normal. She's normally a bit more... slow? It was the middle of the night and I know they're nocturnal so maybe this is normal behavior since I normally handle her during the day. But we noticed she was acting like this a few nights ago as well (moving rather quickly) Is any of this at all normal? I mean, she is my first ball python but I want to make sure I'm doing everything right.

On a less serious subject... I was planning on buying those jungle vines for her tank and possibly getting rid of her log. I've seen this vines zip tied or twist tied to the lids of tanks from looking at other people's set ups. However, I don't want to lift up the vines every time I take her lid off to change the water or handle her. I'm thinking of putting them in once I upgrade her tank but I don't know of how to set them up so they look good but are sturdy. Any ideas or suggestions on how I can set them up?

Sounds to me like she is hungry. It also sounds like you need to up her prey size. I suggest feeding her prey that is about the same thickness as the thickest part of her body every five to seven days.

Hope this helps.

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Originally Posted by Wh00h0069

Sounds to me like she is hungry. It also sounds like you need to up her prey size. I suggest feeding her prey that is about the same thickness as the thickest part of her body every five to seven days.

Hope this helps.

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This is actually the smallest thing I've fed her since I got her. And this thing was slightly smaller than the thickest part of her body. Everything else has been slightly bigger and she ate it no problem. I only found out yesterday about "as thick as the thickest part of her body" rule, but so far she's been eating like a little pig.

I follow the 10-15% body weight rule.

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Originally Posted by JayBP

I follow the 10-15% body weight rule.

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Okay...

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Originally Posted by JayBP

I follow the 10-15% body weight rule.

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Generally in my experience, this rule tends to be either too big or too small.

Try to feed her more than once in a sitting, but the second one probably needs to be frozen or pk.
What have you been feeding her? Have you tried f/t?

To answer your question about f/t, mine hits and constricts a f/t animal
Yours appears to be as big, if not bigger (though pics can be deceving) than mine and mine eats med adult mice, fwiw.

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Originally Posted by Pandora

Okay...

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:weirdface have you not heard of it?

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Originally Posted by blackcrystal22

Generally in my experience, this rule tends to be either too big or too small.

Try to feed her more than once in a sitting, but the second one probably needs to be frozen or pk.
What have you been feeding her? Have you tried f/t?

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I can't feed her frozen, it's not even an option. If my mother sees frozen rats in her freezer, she will boot me and the snake out of the house. The rules for keeping Pandora were as long as the snake doesn't interfere in any way with her life, I can keep her. Twice in one sitting? Will she eat a second one?

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Originally Posted by JayBP

:weirdface have you not heard of it?

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I have. But the size of the food is not my concern here... lol

I have a few that don't constrict when i feed them frozen. They just come over smell it for a minute then down it goes..

From your picture i would recommend adult mice or maybe rat pups..

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Originally Posted by Pandora

I have. But the size of the food is not my concern here... lol

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:weirdface You two were talking about food. He says she might still be hungry. I suggested ways to prevent that by feeding a certain size food. He recommended feeding pray the same size as the thickest part of your snakes body and I recommended feeding prey about the size 10-15% of you snakes weight. So, its not like I randomly came in talking about prey size out of nowhere. . .

To answer your questions about BPs constricting f/t prey, mine do. After they strike and latch on, I tug on it a little to simulate the prey fighting back. They usually constrict tighter then. I do this so if I ever have to feed them live, they will know they have to constrict.

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Originally Posted by JayBP

To answer your questions about BPs constricting f/t prey, mine do. After they strike and latch on, I tug on it a little to simulate the prey fighting back. They usually constrict tighter then. I do this so if I ever have to feed them live, they will know they have to constrict.

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Okay, thank you.
I guess the first response didn't really cover the concerns I mentioned in the original post, so I can see where we both got confused. I apologize.

You said you couldnt do f/t because of your mom
What if you buy each feeding mouse/rat on the day you are going to feed. That way nothing in the freezer to upset mom.

Mine seems to do the same thing (trying to get out) the day before I feed him, so I'm thinking it's a hunger issue too because the next day I'll feed him and he'll calm down for another 5-6 days. Then he's usually active again for a night until I feed him.

I also feed frozen and sometimes he will simply sniff it and eat it like someone above said. Other times he'll strike and constrict it. I'm guessing Pandora thought it was dead and didn't realize she had to kill it before eating.

I have jungle vines that I bought from a local pet store that have suction cups on the end. I suction them the back of the cage and it looks really nice, plus he loves to play in them. I think that would give the same look/effect you are going for with twist tying them to the cover, but without the hassle

I've had snakes not constrict smaller prey items. The first time I saw it happen it was very disturbing because the baby rat cried the whole time that she ate it alive.....I was told that if the prey item is small then the snake will sometimes decide not to waste the energy constricting it. I've seen it happen three or four times and there was never any negative consequences for the snake.

Okay, to answer your first question. I would say she probably didn't constrict because the prey was way to small. From the picture and your description she sounds about the same size as my girls and they are all eating small to med mice.
As for your second question. Thats just what some BP's do to pass time. As long as she is not constantly trying to get out, I wouldn't worry.
As for number three I would think that yes they would be more active at night. I would probably be more worried if I took mine out and they didn't move.
And sorry can't help with number four.

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Originally Posted by uafgrad

You said you couldnt do f/t because of your mom
What if you buy each feeding mouse/rat on the day you are going to feed. That way nothing in the freezer to upset mom.

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That's actually what my boyfriend suggested doing; but in that case, I can just continue to feed her live because that's what I'm currently doing (buying the day of feeding)

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Originally Posted by Pandora

I have. But the size of the food is not my concern here... lol

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I would guess your snake is hungry from all that I have read and the little I have seen. If that is the case then you should be very concerned with the size of the food. Also they bite with their mouth and constrict with there body. If the prey is too small it would have to constrict with its neck. Ball Pythons will eat dead prey in the wild so maybe she thought it was dead already.

I find that the "thickest part of the body" and "10%-15%" rule are not mutually exclusive. My Ball Python is a little over 20 inches long. She weighed 101 grams before her last feeding and I fed her a medium mouse that weight 14 grams. The mouse was 13.8% of her body weight and about the same circumference as her. My snake usually explores her tank after being held and has fallen more than a few times. I recently went into my back yard cut down a maple branch, trimmed it to fit her tank then baked it for an hour at 300 degrees. Then I put it in my freezer over night, let it warm back up and then introduced it to her cage. With more stuff in her tank she hasn't fallen yet.

As for keeping mice in the freezer. I have a live in girlfriend that was very very against having a dead mouse in the freezer. I picked up my mice from Petco, they come in individual sealed zip lock baggies and those baggies are in a Tupperware like container. Try buying a pint of ice cream and labeling it PANDORA's. Throw the ice cream away and wrap the mice container in paper towels and then put that in the ice cream container. Put Pandora's "Ice cream" in the back of the freezer. Now if anyone tries to eat her ice cream they are in for a surprise.

People should no better than to open Pandora's box...I mean ice cream tub filled with paper towels wrapped around a container filled with individually packaged dead mice.

The 10-15% weight rule works for me just fine because the girth is also similar. My bp is 750 grams, his meals are 70-80 grams. Anything smaller and he just hangs out waiting for more food.

Don't forget, just because prey may weigh a certain amount, does not mean it will be a specific thickness. Many rat pups or small mice can be long and thin and weigh the same as a short and fat prey (this applies more to f/t than live)

Helena, I keep my frozen f/t in a mini fridge freezer sometimes and as long as the temperature in the freezer is set to full, it is the same as the bigger freezers I have.

Anyway, a few people have mentioned prey size - that is because what you were describing as a meal in the first post was basically a pinkie, which is not nearly enough for your bp. My male would climb his vines/plants trying to get out desperately when he was a few months old, so I bumped him up to rat pups and covered his tank better and he calmed down.

They usually won't bother to try to constrict something that's no longer than their head--it would be silly to try.

Of course I have one older female albino bp who will eat anything she can alive unless its wiggling is too vigorous. We try to feed her stunned only, as she absolutely refuses f/t (I've tried all the tricks, repeatedly, for over a year).

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Originally Posted by missi182

The 10-15% weight rule works for me just fine because the girth is also similar. My bp is 750 grams, his meals are 70-80 grams. Anything smaller and he just hangs out waiting for more food.

Don't forget, just because prey may weigh a certain amount, does not mean it will be a specific thickness. Many rat pups or small mice can be long and thin and weigh the same as a short and fat prey (this applies more to f/t than live)

Helena, I keep my frozen f/t in a mini fridge freezer sometimes and as long as the temperature in the freezer is set to full, it is the same as the bigger freezers I have.

Anyway, a few people have mentioned prey size - that is because what you were describing as a meal in the first post was basically a pinkie, which is not nearly enough for your bp. My male would climb his vines/plants trying to get out desperately when he was a few months old, so I bumped him up to rat pups and covered his tank better and he calmed down.

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Everybody seems to think that my concern is the size of her food, but it isn't!!
I mentioned that that is the smallest I have fed her since I got her, everything else has been bigger. Unfortunately, that was the only thing the place I go to get her food had. I'm well aware of what size her food should be and that's exactly what I've been feeding her. It's just this one time that was different. My concern was why she wasn't constricting but now I know that the mouse was too small.

I think what everyone is trying to say is that your problems revolve around prey that is too small and the ball being hungry. She's most likely more active because she is hungry. She didn't constrict because the prey was too small. After being told by a dozen people that you need to up the food size, if you're still not concerned about her diet, then, well, you at least SHOULD be. You just asked this question, meaning that you apparantly weren't concerned about this before, just now, and, you're just now feeding a pinky, so, yes, it does go hand-in-hand. Feed the right size prey and your "problems" should all disappear.

althought not the sname snake, i have carpet pythons that do it sometimes also. sometimes they will strike,constrict then eat and sometimes they will just prefer me to lay it down and let them eat it. all of mine eat the proper size food and still do it so i agree it isnt an issue of food size. i just think sometimes they become lazy or something lol. i have noticed though if you thaw them then let them warm up to room tempurature or a little warmer they will stike more often. but if unthawed and not 70 to 80 degrees in tempurature they will just eat it like they know its already dead.

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Originally Posted by Pandora

My concern was why she wasn't constricting but now I know that the mouse was too small.

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:gj:

yes you can feed 2 in one sitting.

But feed equal value.

For example..

Say I have a male bp that takes a small rat (65 grams) but since I feed weaners to my snakes I give him 2 weaners (30-35grams each).

Some of my snakes constrict and some don't. I have snakes that constrict like they are gonna pop their prey's head off (corns are crazy!) and some that just don't care and eat it live. :oops:

You said that she got out once earlier, maybe her scanning the top and climbing is just her trying to find the way out again.

If you can buy a little mini freezer suggested by another member, then you can buy a good supply of f/t, and as they vary in size in the batches, you can pick out the right sized rodent for each meal, instead of "get what your given/ the only size they have" when you buy live. All being well your BP will be around for 10/15/20 years, so buying a mini freezer may be a good investment

ps-May be try rats... my BP was a funny eater. When i gave mice he wouldn't be that bothered (ie-not resticting letting go after restricting), i could take it away and he would let me. Now he's on rats and hasn't refused since, as for getting a rat off him ...nooo chance:colbert:

Kaa one time did the opposite no strike just sorta snuggled up to the rat then dicided "ah what the hey " and slowly started to constrict
he didnt get bit, but boy he shoulda ive fed him prekilled but its rare usually hafta feed live to all my snakes anyways back to your problem
i got so tired of the rat hunt every weekend lookin for the right size i just started breeding my own, sooo...lemme know what size i,ll fedx em to yah:D
k im kidding , if you have more than one bp, or rat eater i should say it is so much cheaper and easier to breed your own, i wouldnt worry about him not constricting he just got thrown for a loop it happens, and roaming around lookin for a place to hole up for fall, he,ll be fine

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Originally Posted by Pandora

On a less serious subject... I was planning on buying those jungle vines for her tank and possibly getting rid of her log. I've seen this vines zip tied or twist tied to the lids of tanks from looking at other people's set ups. However, I don't want to lift up the vines every time I take her lid off to change the water or handle her. I'm thinking of putting them in once I upgrade her tank but I don't know of how to set them up so they look good but are sturdy. Any ideas or suggestions on how I can set them up?

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I used the plastic suction cup thingies that are used to hold up window decorations... you can get them in the christmas decorations section at home depot... they work REALLY well, and we have had no problems with them!

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Originally Posted by Pandora

On a less serious subject... I was planning on buying those jungle vines for her tank and possibly getting rid of her log. I've seen this vines zip tied or twist tied to the lids of tanks from looking at other people's set ups. However, I don't want to lift up the vines every time I take her lid off to change the water or handle her. I'm thinking of putting them in once I upgrade her tank but I don't know of how to set them up so they look good but are sturdy. Any ideas or suggestions on how I can set them up?

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We used the little plastic suction cups that are used to hold window decorations... we got an assorted sized package at home depot in the christmas decorations aisle... no problems, and they work great!

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Originally Posted by Bettacreek

I think what everyone is trying to say is that your problems revolve around prey that is too small and the ball being hungry. She's most likely more active because she is hungry. She didn't constrict because the prey was too small. After being told by a dozen people that you need to up the food size, if you're still not concerned about her diet, then, well, you at least SHOULD be. You just asked this question, meaning that you apparantly weren't concerned about this before, just now, and, you're just now feeding a pinky, so, yes, it does go hand-in-hand. Feed the right size prey and your "problems" should all disappear.

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Saying I'm not concerned about the size of her food is extremely ignorant because it's the exact opposite of that.
The only reason a dozen people told me to up her food size is because they failed to read the part where I mentioned that was the smallest I've ever fed her and it was the only mouse I was able to buy for her at the time.

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Originally Posted by rishnack

Kaa one time did the opposite no strike just sorta snuggled up to the rat then dicided "ah what the hey " and slowly started to constrict
he didnt get bit, but boy he shoulda ive fed him prekilled but its rare usually hafta feed live to all my snakes anyways back to your problem
i got so tired of the rat hunt every weekend lookin for the right size i just started breeding my own, sooo...lemme know what size i,ll fedx em to yah:D
k im kidding , if you have more than one bp, or rat eater i should say it is so much cheaper and easier to breed your own, i wouldnt worry about him not constricting he just got thrown for a loop it happens, and roaming around lookin for a place to hole up for fall, he,ll be fine

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Pandora's my only snake and will be for the next little while so breeding rats is neither convenient nor logical for me to do at the time being.

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Originally Posted by scotty99

If you can buy a little mini freezer suggested by another member, then you can buy a good supply of f/t, and as they vary in size in the batches, you can pick out the right sized rodent for each meal, instead of "get what your given/ the only size they have" when you buy live. All being well your BP will be around for 10/15/20 years, so buying a mini freezer may be a good investment

ps-May be try rats... my BP was a funny eater. When i gave mice he wouldn't be that bothered (ie-not resticting letting go after restricting), i could take it away and he would let me. Now he's on rats and hasn't refused since, as for getting a rat off him ...nooo chance:colbert:

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I feed her both rats and mice. I pick according to size (unlike what some people would like to believe) when I'm at the pet store. If their rats are too small, I'll pick a mouse that's decent size and viceversa. She's not picky about that

I wouldn't keep switching from mice to rats, i know you have to depending on whats in the shop, but I would try and keep to one species

regards scott

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Originally Posted by scotty99

I wouldn't keep switching from mice to rats, i know you have to depending on whats in the shop, but I would try and keep to one species

regards scott

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but why?

If the snake will switch back and forth...what is it hurting?


:confuse:

I'm wondering that too. IF there ever was a problem and someone couldnt get rats or mice, I would think it would be a help to know your snake will eat either one.

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Originally Posted by MeMe

but why?

If the snake will switch back and forth...what is it hurting?


:confuse:

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Yep fair point,if you want to feed both, and it works ok then great, but her snake isn't eating quite properly, otherwise she wouldn't of posted a thread. I just thought may be rats might induce a more aggressive feeding reponse, which i got from my BP by switching to rats from mice, thought it might be worth suggesting her giving it a try.:)

Regards Scott

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Originally Posted by scotty99

Yep fair point,if you want to feed both, and it works ok then great, but her snake isn't eating quite properly, otherwise she wouldn't of posted a thread. I just thought may be rats might induce a more aggressive feeding reponse, which i got from my BP by switching to rats from mice, thought it might be worth suggesting her giving it a try.:)

Regards Scott

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If she can only get what is availabe to her...rats one week mice the next..then that's just what she has to do. It is what is available to her.

I ..would first consider upping the size of the prey or offering more than one at a sitting. but that's just me. :oops:

On a side note...I only feed rats. I don't offer any other type of prey. I breed my own rats...and feed live.

~memes

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Originally Posted by Pandora

Saying I'm not concerned about the size of her food is extremely ignorant because it's the exact opposite of that.
The only reason a dozen people told me to up her food size is because they failed to read the part where I mentioned that was the smallest I've ever fed her and it was the only mouse I was able to buy for her at the time.

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Actually, I did read the entirety of your original post as well as every one following it. The point to mention the size is because you asked why the snake was lingering - I answered by saying FEED IT MORE. You can't get defensive when people are pointing out the answer and your ignoring it. Yes you said that this was the smallest meal, and you also said your snake was acting up, so people with experience looked at those two facts and gave you your answer.

If you think it is not the lack of food (this week alone perhaps, not always) that is causing your snake to act up, what are your thoughts as to the cause?

The issue with switching between rats and mice is not that your snake will not take both now. The issue is that it may not ALWAYS take both. There is a good chance that you may not experience many refusals, and there is also a good chance you will.

The reason most owners stick with one type of prey is because bp's do well with consistency. They don't do well (in captivity) with frequent changes to their diet or surroundings. If you want scientific facts behind that, well I can't give you any. I can only provide you with the tried and true methods of success and let you decide which route you will take as a new owner.