Funny this thread should come up as Mike and I were just discussing this the other night.

We were wondering if it's possible (or plausible) that if you offer your snake an overly large meal consistently you might be actually screwing with it's natural predator/prey response and therefore ultimately it's feeding reaction to prey offered.

This was our train of thought. An animal that has an abundance of easy to get, larger prey sources will adjust to this at some point and perhaps lose it's aggressive feeding response somewhat (in other words, why work hard if it's so easy to fill one's belly). Offering a slightly smaller prey source (at least in our thoughts) or offering multiples of that smaller prey for larger snakes, might keep the snake believing it has to work for that smaller meal, stay alert and stay aggressive in order to get enough food to grow. After all these aren't higher thinking mammals, these are creatures that have had to react and adjust to their environment for eons in order to thrive.

Just a thought really....


~~Jo~~