Posted by:
ginevive
at Tue Sep 21 14:31:00 2004 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by ginevive ]
Generally, it is best to feed one prey item at a time. Therefore, one adult mouse would be better than feeding three or four smaller ones. I believe the reasoning behind this is that air/gas pockets can build up inside the snake, in between the mice/rats, and cause bloating in the snake. In your case, I would feed one mouse a week until the snakes are large enough to start on rat weanlings (fuzzies.) Then you can begin the fun switch from mice to rats; some snakes eagerly take rats the first time, others will be a bit more of a hassle.
Hopefully you are feeding frozen/thawed mice, or at least prekilled. Live mice and rats can really bite hard, and a bite could be potentially life threatening to the snake if it's bitten, say, inside the mouth.
Sexing is the process by which we find out whether our snake is male or female. In ball pythons and other such snakes, probes are inserted into the vent. They go less far into a female than they do in the male (because the male's "thing", referred to as hemipenes (there are two) is inverted and the probe goes into that.) This should only be done by a professional, or someone who has witnessed probing firsthand and been supervised by a pro!
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2.1 Ball pythons: Goblin, Ashes, and Bela
1.0 Boa Constrictor Imperator: Apache Fog
0.1 albino Cranwell's horned frog: Bene
1.0 Tiger salamander: Slasher
1.0 black kittycat, Inky
A bunch of Oscar cichlids, one giant pleco, huge breeding lot of "fancy" (read: deformed) goldfish, and me an' the boyfriend.
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RE: New to the snake buisess. - ginevive, Tue Sep 21 14:31:00 2004