Quote Originally Posted by Slim View Post
I'm no Vet, but I have a hard time believing that large prey items are the cause of this problem. There are a lot of people out there who probably over feed, and you don't hear about this happening too often. As far as the husbandry goes, that snake looks to be in pretty good health other than the prolapse.
You don't hear about it happening that often, but truth is, we have no idea how often it happens...sure it's not mites or RI, but we don't know. I'd venture to guess that those who participate in snake/reptile forums are in the vast minority of those who actually own reptiles.

As far as too large of a prey item causing this problem, I would think it's entirely feasible. Give a snake a meal that is too large, and it is automatically going to pass a larger amount of waste. Whatever may be coming out with that larger amount of waste, whether it be bacteria, undigested hair, etc...could easily irritate what is a rather sensitive body part. Same goes for feeding too often. Let's say a snake eats 2,3,4 times, goes into shed, and after shedding let's all that waste out in one shot. That could potentially cause a good amount of stress to the rectum.