Too small of prey equals pita

[Sauzo]

So I decide today i'll give Vicky a little snack so I go down to the local shop and pick up a hopper mouse. Well this hopper mouse was on the itsy bitsy side. I get home, I pick up Vicky's hide and kill the mouse and hang it for Vicky. She snags it in seconds and starts eating. Well I didn't want her to eat aspen so I pick her up and put her on her paper plate. Well she got all pissy about that and wrapped around my thumb, dropped the mouse and was pissed as all hell. So I pick up the mouse and try feeding her again, she grabs it and drops it. This goes on about 6 more times, this whole time she is squeezing my thumb and sitting on my wrist. Obviously she is hungry as she is ansty and looking all over. I cant get her to let go of my thumb lol. So I take her still on my thumb and the mouse over to the sink and rinse it in hot water to warm it up and then dry it off, all with 1 hand. I go back to Vickys cage, her still hanging on my thumb and do the nose bang with the mouse, she grabs it again and this time she is so pissed off, she drops off my thumb and tries to wrap the mouse but it is too small so she is rolling around the aspen with this mouse in her mouth. She finally starts eating it but she grabbed it by the center. I again pick her up and put her on top of her hide box so she doesn't eat aspen. She is pissed as all hell and hisses and goes gung ho on the mouse and folds it in half and eats it like that lol. Well she finally got done and then crawled off and stretched out in the back of the cage with just her head poking out looking at me. Morale is don't buy too small of prey or it will suck. Oh btw during one of her strikes, she missed and tagged my finger lol. Good thing she is a baby. Anyways my advice is not to do that but I have been doing that with my 6' girl since she was a baby like Vicky so I'm used to it and now Rosey doesn't even care if I move her since she is so used to it from when she was a baby.

[artgecko]

I'd let her worry about things if she grabs it in the wrong place or ingests aspen, etc. I keep my sand boas on aspen (and my hognose) and have never had an ingestion problem with either (and the boas actually drag their prey under the aspen). I've also had numerous feeds where the snake grabs the wrong end or the middle,etc. They typically get it sorted out.

What's really fun is when you can't get your hognose to feed and have a hopper leftover... and give it to your 4' boa. It's fun to watch the thought process of the snake.. Whenever this happens he tries to coil (like you said), then figures it out in about 1 minute or so and just swallows.

I am going to try chicks with my guy next week... It'll be interesting as they are about 1/2 the size of his normal prey (sm / med. rats).

[Sauzo]

Lol yeah, I'm abit OCD though and really don't like to see my snakes eat substrate even though I know darn well it wont hurt them And yeah, Vicky ended up just literally folding the mouse in half and swallowing it. One side of her mouth had the head and the other side had the butt. It was kind of comical to watch. That's gonna be interesting with chicks lol. I though about maybe trying quails with Rosey my big BCI but I don't know, easier for me to just go to the reptile shop, grab a rat, kill it and hang it in the cage doorway.

[artgecko]

Yeah... I got the chicks on a whim... I did a f/t feeder order 2 weeks ago and saw that bigcheese had day-old chicks (and that they are pretty darn cheap). I know of many boa people that feed a rotation that includes birds of some kind (chicks or quail) so I thought I'd give it a try. I will probably have to give him 2 to be somewhat equivalent to a small / med. rat, but it will be interesting to see how he handles the new prey item.

[Reinz]

Good job hanging in there Sauzo!

[Sauzo]

Lol thanks. I didn't really have a choice though as Vicky was squeezing my thumb and wouldn't let go. She's only about 2' so I didn't want to try and force her off and hurt her so I just let her hang there on me And yeah Artgecko, I would like to do that too but shipping to here is so expensive from Big Cheese unless you catch them on a $29 flat rate deal.

[artgecko]

They had one of those going (at least as of last week) which is why I ordered. If they don't have what I need (or they are not doing the shipping sale) I order from perfect prey... Wouldn't Lane (sp?) labs be closer to you? i've heard their bulk (extreme bulk) pricing is great, but their shipping to me in GA is horrendous.

[Sauzo]

Hmm i'll have to check out Layne Labs. I just buy live from my reptile shop and then bring them home all the food and kill it all myself and feed everyone. I'd just use them for birds as the last time I asked about live chicks, I made the mistake of mentioning I was feeding them to snakes and omg you could feel the heat of the burning rage from the store people. Morale, don't ever say you are going to feed baby birds to anything, they will always be pets!!