Posted by:
longtang
at Thu Aug 21 09:12:56 2003 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by longtang ]
>>While I've never had a ball regurgitate from eating too large a meal I have had several back off large meals that they apparently thought where too large to swallow. Relative to what I've seen Boa Constrictors and Burmese pythons eat they really weren’t that large of meals per snake size and I was surprised that they gave up. Maybe my ball pythons are wimps.
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>>I've also had balls that seemed to go off of rats right after being offered one that they apparently thought was too big. I think they can get intimidated and then have to start working up with smaller prey animals again.
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>>If yours will eat huge meals and have no problems from them then good for you. I'll probably continue to test the limits of mine from time to time but am pretty conservative about it.
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>>I did once loose a milk snake that suffocated trying to eat too large of a meal. It was an odd situation where the previous keeper hadn't been able to feed for a while and I didn't have the right size item but felt I needed to feed right away (very thin). Of course in hindsight I feel terrible about it but I learned that at least it is possible to loose a snake that way. Anyone ever have a ball that couldn't back off a feeder that was too big to swallow?
I have had back offs at least 3 or four times with two different Snakeys. They were both BP's. I think of it as another insurance where the BP themselves know what is too big.
I am actually kind of like you. I test the limits only time to time. What I mean is that I don't test the limits each and everytime I feed.
Most of the time, I feed much smaller than the 185 gm rat. In fact, I have only fed 185 gm rat one time. The second larges rat is a distant 110 grams.
cheers.
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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.
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RE: Pythons can eat very large. - longtang, Thu Aug 21 09:12:56 2003