feeding live to a baby

[deadsmiley]

i have a tiny little snake, 2 months old last sunday. everyone says that i need to feed live to a baby, even the guy i bought it from said that i am suppose to feed him a live mouse from petco. i have one upstairs and it seems a little too big for him but the guy said that he was feeding them these basically adult mice (not sure if i believe that). my question is how do i go about feeding him a live mouse without tongs or damage to my snake?


this is him last night while i was working his bad shed off with a wet towel. seems a little too small to eat a near adult mouse, does it to you? bad pic but only clear one i got.

[Nick_bp]

The prey item should be as big as the widest part of your snake. My baby bp is a couple months old and Is about a foot and a half long and I fed her two days ago I fed her a small adult mouse and it was big. I didn't think she was going to eat it but she did and eveything is fine. They will surprise you. But if you feed a prey item that is way to big it will break your snakes ribs which is obiously not good. How long is your snake? The way I do it is I grab the mouse by it's tail At the very end and I hold it in front of my bp and she will stoke and constrict it. Don't hold on to tight so when she grabs it comes right out of your grip.

[PghBall]

If you have the ability to get one, you could also try a few 2-3 week old rat pup. Your snake should be able to handle one without issue and they would pose next to no threat to the snake.

[AkHerps]

You don't have to use tongs, you can just feed him a live mouse in his enclosure with your supervision. Never leave a live feeder in with your snakes without your supervision, it's too risky. The best way to get new timers to eat is to turn off the bright lights also, and then just sit and wait. That's what I did.

[dracovolans]

. But if you feed a prey item that is way to big it will break your snakes ribs which is obiously not good.

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[sarahlovesmiike]

When feeding live you want to keep the prey as calm as possible. Put it in the enclosure, maybe give it something really good to snack on, and wait. Don't leave it in the enclosure for more than 30-40 minutes, and SUPERVISE the whole time. If the prey starts to go after the snake, take it out immediately.

DO NOT hold it by the tail because they will drop their skin (deglove) which is very painful and quite cruel, even though you bought it as snake food it deserves respect. Also, don't use tongs on live prey they get scared and you have a higher chance of injury to the snake.

[sarahlovesmiike]

Also, I'm fairly certain that feeding a large prey item will NOT break the ribs of a snake. Could be wrong, but if the prey is too large your snake will simply not eat it.

[rabernet]

No - feeding prey too large will not break your snake's ribs - that's the silliest thing I've heard in some time! LOL

It's not good to feed too large, because it can cause regurgitation.

No "tricks", no stunning, no holding with tongs, or dangling by tails is needed.

Pre-scent by putting the mouse in a critter keeper near the snake's enclosure for about 30 minutes, then drop the mouse in the enclosure at the opposite end of the enclosure from the snake, and the snake will take care of the rest.

[wolfy-hound]

I'd like to add in, if you think the snake will take Frozen/Thawed, you can always try it. There's no rule that you must use live prey.

Agreed.. breaking the ribs? Never even heard that one. Snakes are remarkably flexible, and I doubt highly that a large prey item would ever manage that.

If the mouse is about as big as the thickest part of the snake, it should be fine. Like the other poster mentioned, you could also try rat pups of a correct size and it would not be able to harm the snake.

[Nick_bp]

That's what somebody told me, if it's too big it will break it's ribs. If you go to my started threads and read all my replies you can see what they said.