Husband fed boa way to big :(

[EmiLee]

Hi! I've been on a very strict protocol with feeding my 300 gram dwarf boa, as I know its better to grow them slowly. Yesterday my husband was feeding our BP, trying to switch him over to a smallish/medium adult f/t rat after he got a live mouse. Since he didn't take it, my husband thought it was a great idea to dingle the rat in front of my boa, thinking that she wouldn't take it since it was so large. Well she did take it. I got extremely mad at him, he tried to take it from her, even trade it out for a smaller one but she wouldn't have it. So she ate it... hoping that she will be ok!!? This was yesterday afternoon and she seems OK, just very FAT and finally went to her heat pad which she is on now. Thinking om going to have to wait to feed her for at least 3 weeks if she doesn't regurgitate?

Any advice or words of wisdom would be appreciated... i definitely scolded my husband for it, can't believe he did that

[EL-Ziggy]

If the snake got the prey item down it should be able to digest if. I'd just leave him alone and space out the next feeding by a week or two.

[richardhind1972]

If it don't get regurgitated then just leave it a few weeks to feed again

Sent from my CLT-L09 using Tapatalk

[Bogertophis]

Cross your fingers, most will be OK...but remind your husband that snakes can & do DIE sometimes from unsuccessfully trying to regurgitate a meal...it can get aspirated
into their lungs & kill them, so prevention is key. Huge meals for snakes puts them at a risk they sure don't need.

[viper69]

Let nature take its course. If it's too much food, the snake will bring it back up.

[bcr229]

I'd wait at least four weeks, maybe six, before feeding again. That meal isn't going to digest and come out all at once, it will take at least a month.

[dakski]

Make sure temps are correct as well, especially hot spot. Hoping the rat digests.

[303_enfield]

24 hrs have passed, she'll be fine. Now, watch how many days it takes the bump to go away. An as most have stated, skip the next feeding. She'll just be fat an happy for a bit.

[Bogertophis]

24 hrs have passed, she'll be fine...

Not if you handle or otherwise stress her...she could still barf up for quite some time, since she's still digesting. Keep things quiet around her for a while, please...

[CloudtheBoa]

I agree, skip a feeding day, feed no sooner than a month from when she ate the rat. I've had experience feeding my boa super-sized meals, talking literally the largest he could physically swallow - one rat was so big he couldn't get past the shoulders and had to pull it out of his mouth with a coil. After a month or two of this, he began refusing food until I backed off the prey size. He would poop, all the time because he was constantly digesting food, and consequently grew way too fast and got too fat (on top of me feeding way too large of rabbits later on, right before some users on here corrected me). A big meal here and there is fine, if you make sure to avoid feeding overly large meals often and balance it out with a long digestion period and smaller/normal-size prey in the next meal.

The snake should be fine, but next time, tell your husband if he doesn't think a snake will eat something because it's too big, don't offer it.