Quote Originally Posted by Ophiuchus View Post
Can't speak for anyone else, but out of all the WC snakes (ballpark of around 1000) I've come across over the past 14 yrs, only a handful had any kind of skin blemish or scarring. And thats not to say that of all the scarred ones, each injury had come from a prey item. Coulda been something else.

Just putting that out there...
That also doesn't account for the ones that you never saw because they died from the initial injuries or secondary infections. I took all my snakes into the vet for wellness checks a couple of weeks ago and he asked me about the scars on my carpet. I told him I fed him live prey and he mentioned F/T and then went on to tell me that they has gotten some boas in with nasty infections from bites.

But, your experience is interesting nonetheless. Its funny because when somebody tells about how their snake was bitten the usual response is "How big was the rodent?" - of course implying that it may have been the keeper's mistake of feeding an overly large prey item. But somehow I don't think that snakes are that picky in the wild. They are certainly known to take very large prey for their size.

Perhaps it has to do with the actual prey items. Mice are one thing but I wonder how often the larger snakes actually eat big rats. Perhaps there are other prey available that aren't as effective in retaliating.

Perhaps it has to do with the artificial boundaries of the cage affecting the snake's movement.

I wonder if anybody has ever done a study on snake mortality in the wild. It would be an interesting read - perhaps I'll search for that today if I have time.

Cheers!


I would say that balls would tend to have fewer