Live Feeding for Milksnakes

[frankykeno]

Well our daughter's 05 milksnake has always eaten f/t mice but since she's growing so nicely and we always have rat pinks here I decided last night to try her on a live rat pink.

What a difference in feeding style! Emi has always just sort of slithered up to her warmed up f/t mouse and sucked it down. Basically just that. With the live rat pink she wiggled madly, waved her tail, reared up, slammed down on it, sort of waved it about a bit and then smooshed it against the side of her feeding tub. It was pretty amazing to watch! She seemed to know exactly what to do and was very aggressively dealing with her prey though not in the kind of constriction I'm used to with the balls and the boas.

After she ate she was a bit over excited and did take a swing or two at me when I approached her tub (not something she usually does after feeding) but quickly settled back down in her home enclosure.

So for those that feed live prey to milksnakes or similar colubrids, is this a "normal" feeding response? The rat pink seems a lovely size for her, didn't even leave a noticeable lump, just a nice bit of thickening and I sort of like that she got a bit of stimulation in her life hunting it.

[djansen]

I agree, when my nelsons ate pre killed he just slirped them up but he got really excited when i fed live, really quick! i tried not to confuse him though.

[_BoidFinatic_]

I have noticed the elevated feeding response with live prey, from the colubrids, after being fed live after numerous feedings of f/t or p/k.

Sometimes, young colubrids, especially milks, will not take live on their first few feedings because they seem to be intimidated by the movements of pinkies. In those cases, I will start them off on p/k or f/t until they realize that pinkies are food, after which the following feedings can successfully include live prey.

What kind of milk is it, by the way?

[xdeus]

My two Black Milks feed with that crazy feeding response every time, and I feed F/T. They're very mellow snakes... well, they do move about and squirm a lot when you get them out of the cage, but they have never so much as hissed or struck out at anyone. However, every feeding day they put on a show. They sort of constrict, but they also flail about the cage while holding onto their little rat.

[frankykeno]

Emi's an 05 (she'll be two years old on July 31st this year), female Albino Nelson's Milksnake. Absolutely stunning looking and a very laid back snake for a colubrid - things I've read tend to say Nelson's are like this - not as spazzy as some other milks and Emi certainly proves that out.

Well it's good to know this was a pretty normal reaction to live prey. She's always been a consistent f/t eater on her mice but she needed a tad more size in her prey and I've always got newborn rat pinks around. Nice to add another rat eater to the snake collection.

[jglass38]

When I had a Milk, 9 times out of 10 he would eat the pinkie alive. It was actually somewhat disturbing to watch and listen to, especially when he ate it backwards.

[frankykeno]

I read a lot of them do that Jamie. I can't say that Emi did as we don't watch her actually swallow, she seems to get put off if we hover too much.