BP doesn't kill before eating live food

[frankykeno]

Silly question but I need to ask. Are you talking pinkie and fuzzie mice or pinkie and fuzzie rats?

[Miss_Ann_Thrope]

oh sorry, mice.

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Have you tried prekilled or frozen/thawed?

At that size I dont think the baby would be doing too much damage to the snake, but its not a good habbit

[Pork Chops N' Corn Bread]

I fed my baby boa a live fuzzie/hopper mouse (snack size)that my frog didn't take and he ate it tail first without constricting it.

[sweety314]

Kishnah did it that way too, but she's outgrown the habit. When the prey got bigger, Kishnah started constricting it and killing it first, and then eating. Perhaps your snake will do it that way too. My guess is S knows the prey won't hurt, but once it gets bigger will start to kill.


I also would shake the prey very lightly (like struggling) once Kishnah struck and grabbed. That would encourage her to coil to keep it from "escaping".....this was beneficial when she'd get lazy and not wrap around it sometimes.

R

[frankykeno]

She's probably doing that because the prey is very small for her. How small is she? Usually a hopper mouse or small adult mouse is easy for even a baby BP to deal with so a pinkie or fuzzie mouse would be way too small. A lot of BP hatchlings can take rat pinks easily. Our milksnake who isn't a year old eats fuzzie mice LOL. Maybe consider moving up that mouse size a bit.

[rabernet]

I'm just confused why folks are feeding pinky and fuzzy mice to their ball pythons anyway? Babies are perfectly capable of taking a hopper mouse that they would HAVE to kill, because a hopper certainly is not going to sit in one place and wait to be eaten alive.


My smallest '06 this season was 74 grams and was eating live hoppers her first few weeks with me and today at 112 grams is eating small adult mice with ease.