First time feeding F/T

[ckwatson]

I am trying F/T for the first time tonight and my snake will strike and constrict the rat but will not eat it. It has been in the feeding tub for about 30 mins now. He has eating rats before and has never taken this long to eat. Any in put would be great.

[Kaorte]

Put the snake back in its home enclosure.

Blast the rat with a hair dryer for 30 seconds.

Offer it to the snake in its home enclosure.


If the snake doesn't eat it, throw the rat away and try again next time.

[ckwatson]

Thanks for the reply. Two of them finely ate, the third one squeezed the guts out of the mouse. Im not sure why that happend it was the smallest of my three snakes. I dont think this one is going to finish its meal.

[Crazy4Herps]

If the guts are coming out, I'm guessing the rodents are your problem. They probably were thawed and refrozen, are over 6 months dead, or weren't packaged air-tight. All of these are fairly common. If you got them from a pet store, it's the pet stores fault. I've had awful experiences buying f/t from pet stores. Try buying from another store or online, although shipping can be a bit pricey; they use dry ice to package them, which is fairly expensive.

[p3titexburial]

Um, actually, one of my bps will sit there with the rodent in his mouth anywhere from 20-40 minutes. The longest he went with holding the rodent was an hour and he does this EVERY TIME--which is a pain in the butt because I want to make sure he eats it before going to sleep.

I usually leave him with it, turn off the lights, and go on my computer, once I hear the aspen rustling and moving about, I know he's started to position it to swallow--but should I go look and he catches sight of me, he'll stop again and hold it for another half hour or so. Leaving him alone seems to speed up the swallowing process down to 15 minutes--but he's still a slowpoke.

=_=;;;

I've always fed f/t so I don't know if there's a difference in swallowing rate between f/t and live.

(or you can also go to reptile expos and pick up rodents too =). good luck!)