Found a feeding trick haha

Well its prolly well known, but i got my new BP about a week ago. I offered him food around the 2nd day i got him and he refused..so today i thought i would give it a shot. Well i had some Hemostats(sp?) and i went to grab the mouse by the tail and put it in the feeding box. at first he paid no interest to it so i took it out and put it back into its cage. After a hour or to i figured i would try again. Well i guess i put a little to much pressure on the hemostats and i pinched the rats tail and a little blood came out. Well after that my big boy hit the rat right away and gobbled it down like he hadnt eated in years haha



THANK GOD....

Well, I don't really think your BP has a feeding problem since the first time you offered he was probably stressed from the enviroment change. But I am glad he ate for you!
You should be a little more careful with the hemostats though! Don't want to put the little mouse in more pain then it needs to be ):

Didn't seem like he needed to be fed. As above poor mousy :(

Grab them by the scruff of the neck, if they try and flip around and bite the hemostats, you are gripping too hard. Usually you only have to lock them on the first lock unless your hemostats are old. Always pre-scent, do not move the snake into a different container than the one it lives in (moving causes stress) and when you go to feed the snake keep the rodent at a good distance, at least to get the snake in striking mode and then move a bit closer, but 4" should be the closest you go.

The heat pits on the snake adapt to the changes in temperature, if you put the prey up too close then it takes up all of the snake's "vision", it will adapt and see that as the standard temperature of the environment, essentially turning a neutral "colour" (the same as it almost always sees), thus the snake does not "see" the prey anymore but sees it's environment. If you have it at a distance then the rodent will register as something obviously different from the background (aka if the rodent takes up less than 50% of the snake's field of "vision" then it will not adapt to that temperature and will distinctly see the prey item as something different from the background (not to mention it will be able to pick up a general outline of the object it will strike at, mentally cuing that image as "food").

When you do that the snake will usually, even if no prescenting has been done, start to flicker it's tongue to sense what that object is. It will then have 3 things telling it that there is food: "Sight", shape, and smell. Making it more likely to strike.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrared_sensing_in_snakes

Quote:

---

The pit organ will adapt to a repeated stimulus; if an adapted stimulus is removed, there will be a fluctuation in the opposite direction. For example, if a warm object is placed in front of the snake, the organ will increase in firing rate at first, but after a while will adapt to the warm object and the firing rate of the nerves in the pit organ will return to normal. If that warm object is then removed, the pit organ will now register the space that it used to occupy as being colder, and as such the firing rate will be depressed until it adapts to the removal of the object. The latency period of adaptation is approximately 50-150 msec.[9]

---

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oxylepy

do not move the snake into a different container than the one it lives in (moving causes stress)

---

I don't feed inside of my BP's enclosure and I've never had a problem with him feeding. I provide him with a hide inside of his feeding tank though and then I wait about an hour before moving him back to his regular enclosure so I don't provoke a regurgitation.

There's many threads on the in the tank vs different tank feeding debate though. I think it's all personal preference.

I feed in a separate tank so I can observe what's going on easier because my tank is now filled with a lot of live/plastic plants and it'd provide way too many hiding places for a mouse to go if I needed to remove it for whatever reason.

That info that you provided is really nuts, Oxy. I didn't realize it was such an itty bitty time frame!:O

I realize a lot of people do move them and do feed them in another enclosure, but generally speaking most handling causes stress to the snake, especially if you are going to feed them.

Although I suppose the snake would become accustomed to it in time and your handling him would put him more into feed mode. ~_~ Which could be a good thing or could be a bad thing. However you have a darn good excuse for feeding him outside of his normal enclosure, especially if you're feeding live. Back when I used a tank i left the top open and was always poised to grab the rodent if anything bad where to start happening, lol, and with those plants that would create an obstacle.

But it is personal choice as to whether you move them or not, either way is up to you but if a snake is new you really want them to be as comfortable as possible before feeding time, especially if they have proven to be finicky eaters.

As for that information: When you're bored, wiki whatever comes to mind, lol. Heck look up threads and just start wikiing random things in them, you always pick up something new and when it's about an animal you love you will retain the knowledge a lot easier.

i guess i have a old style of hemostats. It doesnt have any kind of locking clips on it.

Ah, alright then just squeeze firmly enough so that the mouse/rat cannot get away but not extremely hard because that will hurt the rodent. Many of the hemostats you buy from places like RBI or Bean Farm have little gooved locking bars on them.

Just wondering, but does anyone here feed f/t?

Safer on the snake and you don't have to worry about hurting the prey at all.

Bloodsong

The latency period of adaptation for the pit organ takes 50-150ms to adjust? That's an average of 1/10th of a second. Wouldn't the snake adapt very fast to changes in temps in it's surroundings?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bloodsong

Just wondering, but does anyone here feed f/t?

Safer on the snake and you don't have to worry about hurting the prey at all.

Bloodsong

---

I feed F/T. I find a lot of people on this forum attack the "safer for the snake" reason for frozen thawed. Personally I feed F/T for the same reason I don't feed my cats live mice. I am not interested in keeping rodents, I keep cats so that I don't have to have rodents in the house. Both my snake and my cats do fine with their respective substitutes for live prey. Its really just a matter of convenience. I went down to the basement last night and got 2 mice and two steaks out of the freezer. The steaks were for me and my girlfriend.

I am lucky though, my BP strikes and constricts as if the prey were live. If she stopped doing that I would consider switching her to live.

There are many members on bp.net that feed F/T, and there are many users that feed live. It is true that F/T are good to use because of their is no threat to the snake, but if done properly, there is nothing dangerous about feeding live. Many choose to feed live because they breed their own rats/mice, and many feed live because their snakes will take nothing but.

I feed F/T because my bp will take them easily and they are convenient. If my bp went off feed, I would certainly try live.

Just had to ask. Three years ago I lost a two and a half year old burm to a live rat on a hemostat. I thought it was safe too. Ends up that when they don't constrict just right and those little legs get to kicking infection can mean a quick death. Now if I can't fine frozen I pre-kill the prey myself.

Bloodsong

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Bloodsong

Just had to ask. Three years ago I lost a two and a half year old burm to a live rat on a hemostat. I thought it was safe too. Ends up that when they don't constrict just right and those little legs get to kicking infection can mean a quick death. Now if I can't fine frozen I pre-kill the prey myself.

Bloodsong

---

I find myself defending me F/T choice more often than not. Your story is one of the big reasons I started with F/T. I know the risk is low but I am just not going to unless the risk is outweighed by something else, like a snake that won't eat for a long time and for no good reason. I really don't understand why people ask me why I feed F/T when those same people feed their cat(s) / dog(s) kibble and have no problem cooking up a frozen steak. Because its safe, convenient, and the death of the animal is removed from my house.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by simplechamp

The latency period of adaptation for the pit organ takes 50-150ms to adjust? That's an average of 1/10th of a second. Wouldn't the snake adapt very fast to changes in temps in it's surroundings?

---

Yes, so if you stick a mouse right on it's nose then after about a tenth of a second it will adjust so that the temperature of the mouse is in fact the temperature of it's surroundings, essentially making the mouse invisible.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Egapal

I find myself defending me F/T choice more often than not. Your story is one of the big reasons I started with F/T. I know the risk is low but I am just not going to unless the risk is outweighed by something else, like a snake that won't eat for a long time and for no good reason. I really don't understand why people ask me why I feed F/T when those same people feed their cat(s) / dog(s) kibble and have no problem cooking up a frozen steak. Because its safe, convenient, and the death of the animal is removed from my house.

---

Even if the animal won't eat for, say, two weeks, there are so many tricks to use to avoid live prey. Personally, I have had to use this trick twice, once with a new BP that wasn't eating due to slow acclimation and once with a friends CRB that wouldn't eat while recovering from a bad RI, and never had any trouble getting a feeding reaction. Braining is messy and not the most pleasant thing to do, but you crack the skullcap on a f/t rat or mouse and ANY snake is going to have a very strong feed reaction.

Bloodsong

Today I kinda had something similar happen ~_~

I was feeding one of my snakes a thawed rat pup and it struck and missed but hit in a way that it moved the rodent in the hemostats and a nice chunk of skin ripped off and was left in the hemostats while the rodent was next to the snake, lol.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oxylepy

Yes, so if you stick a mouse right on it's nose then after about a tenth of a second it will adjust so that the temperature of the mouse is in fact the temperature of it's surroundings, essentially making the mouse invisible.

---

Yup yup, that makes sense. This is why it is important for the prey to be moving and is an added attraction to the snake. Having the heat signature moving should make it easier for the snake to track before it's senses adjust to the prey's heat signature.....

I believe this is more important to young inexperienced balls who are still learning about their prey. Older balls should be in a routine when it comes to feeding and they know when it is chow time. 2 of my older balls will eat a dead rat left in the tub overnight, the rat is room temp and I don't have to zombie dance them, so they are not relying on their heat pits but rather their vomeronasal (jacobson) organ to detect their food....