The story of the scariest feed EVER. Alternate title: I Thought I Killed My Snake.

[Kyle@theHeathertoft]

Posting this to a few different places...basically just a short, pointless tale of how paranoid I am about the safety of my animals. XD

So I just moved my Ball, Macchiato, up to the next size in feeder...and I also switched the brand of frozen feeder I use (I've now had THREE bad mice crop up from the last brand, and I'll be hanged if the last bad mouse wasn't actively ROTTING when they froze it. It had actually begun to DECAY.). So tonight, I thawed out the first "new" feeder.

It looked good, nice and healthy looking...the thing was about as wide around as Macchiato's biggest coil, so I felt pretty confident...but it was also a lot longer than the ones he's been eating. Not so much a wider prey item, but longer.

He got all excited at the scent of prey, and once he managed to grab it (he tends to strike and miss once or twice if it isn't actively bonking him on the nose. Thankfully what he lacks in AIM, he makes up for in eagerness to feed. I can't complain.) he only constricted it for about a minute before looking for the head to swallow it.

He mistook the forelimb for the head...and basically tried to eat it sideways.

Twice.

For a bit there he was considering eating it backwards...thankfully that didn't last long.

FINALLY he found the head and began to swallow it...I get a little anxious watching him eat because while I know he is designed by nature itself to do this, it still worries me that he'll...I dunno...split open from being stretched out too much.

He got to the shoulders, and as he was working past them...I heard this terrible little "RIP" sound from his jaws.

OMG, cue my ABSOLUTE PANICK. I thought he was tearing his jaw from stretching too wide. I had this feeling that I'd somehow killed the most wonderful snake in the world. Terror, man, TERROR!!!

Macchiato kept calmly eating his snack, and as he walked his jaws on down, I saw what had made the noise. I've had some humidity issues and Macchiato recently had a stuck shed (actually, ALL my snakes have gotten stuck the last time, I've since switched their substrate and have a humidifier in the room). I thought I'd gotten all the stuck nasty old dead skin off...turns out I missed a tiny patch right under his chin, and the stretch to get past the shoulders dislodged it.

Macchiato now has the teeniest bulge in the middle and instead of going back into hunt-mode, he's curled up and looks supremely satisfied. XD

However, for me it was the Scariest Feeding Ever. I was totally convinced he was gonna die. XD Intellectually I know better...that's the right sized prey item for the little fellow, after all, and it makes sense it'll take more effort to eat something so much bigger than the wee skinny little things he was on. But that doesn't stop me from worrying!

That little "RIP" sound is now burned into my mind, lol!

[Nate]

Glad everything is OK...

In regards to this:

.... I also switched the brand of frozen feeder I use (I've now had THREE bad mice crop up from the last brand, and I'll be hanged if the last bad mouse wasn't actively ROTTING when they froze it. It had actually begun to DECAY.)

What brand is this? Have you notified them of the quality of feeders you've been receiving?

[Kyle@theHeathertoft]

Uhm. Yeah...not comfortable saying publicly since it's sold from the company I work for. The company is a large chain retail pet store. I actually kept that rotten mouse (it's a pinky for the tiny little Corn Snake) and intend to actually physically hand it to my manager on my next workday...right now I'm unable to go in though due apparently to food poisoning. How ironic is that?

Suffice to say I'm buying my feeders from the competition until I can work out the logistics of ordering from Themousefactory.com.

[BeastMaster]

My 2 cents worth.....

http://loxahatcheerodents.com/estore/

I had tried a few of the other "commercial" bread feeders and they were not very consistent quality and didn't look that great when they arrived (droppings in the bag, sick looking rodents, etc...).

Loxahatchee sends theirs out very nicely packaged and they look VERY good, healthy and clean. If you have any problems or concerns about your rodents, the owner of the company lists his phone number. I cannot speak for all of the other companies, but I know where I'm getting my rodents from now on.

BTW, I do not work for them

[dr del]

Hi,

Glad to hear he is ok.

One possible suggestion - if he is having trouble finding the mouse's head it might be worth making sure it is a little hotter than the rest of the body.

That's why I blast the head with a hairdrier for a little while once the rodent has defrosted - it really seems to help my guys key in on the head for the strike.


dr del

[seeya205]

I agre, you need to heat the head so its warmer than the rest of the body!

[Alex24]

Uhm. Yeah...not comfortable saying publicly since it's sold from the company I work for. The company is a large chain retail pet store. I actually kept that rotten mouse (it's a pinky for the tiny little Corn Snake) and intend to actually physically hand it to my manager on my next workday...right now I'm unable to go in though due apparently to food poisoning. How ironic is that?

Suffice to say I'm buying my feeders from the competition until I can work out the logistics of ordering from Themousefactory.com.

Well it is most likely either Petco or Petsmart. Petsmart uses "Artic Mice" brand I dunno if that is the company or not. I work at Petco and the company we get our frozen mice from is "The Gourmet Rodent". I have bought mice from both places and the one difference is all the mice I bought from Petsmart were bloody in the bag. Makes me wonder how they euthanize them...

[zantedeschia]

That's funny, overall I like Petsmart's frozen brand of mice better than Petco's.

Two of my snakes are timid feeders, won't let me watch. I do go back after half an hour, to make sure the prey is gone. Perhaps it would be less stress on your if you did the same.

I have bought mice from both places and the one difference is all the mice I bought from Petsmart were bloody in the bag.

Yeah, Petsmart's mice almost always have bloody noses/heads. Petco's mice quite often smell bad, as if they've been thawed and refrozen. My snakes don't seem to care either way, in fact they seem to like them smelly.