Jumbo Mice are about 35-45 grams (weight chart via Rodentpro.com) that makes very a huge meal for a baby snake. Even at almost 20” long that is crazy. The other fellow was correct, my yearlings are just now taking Jumbo Mice and they are nearly 3 feet long. That is a lot of meal to be “pounding” for a snake that is just a month or two old.

Obesity in young snakes can cause constipation in them resulting in prolapsed bowls, especially in neonates because there muscles have not developed strongly yet to prevent it.

You quoted the weight of the prey item to be 40% of the snakes total body weight. So I am assuming (I know it is a bad thing to do) that the prey animal is 40 grams and the snake is 100 grams, or at least that makes it nice and easy for the numbers. I have a 10 foot Boa that is weighing in a 60lbs. That would be the equivalent of feed that snake a 24 lbs animal! (Medium sized dog). I actually feed that snake a four pound rabbit at most! That is 7% of the snake’s total weight in food.

It is a very pretty snake, but I would slow down a bit on the food intake
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"

Hopkins Holesale Herps

Hopfam1@aol.com

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• First time breeding, baby picture after her first shed.... - Rich_Crowley, Sun May 22 21:50:23 2005
• Very nice looking, but I'm wondering.... - morgans boas, Sun May 22 22:32:19 2005
• RE: Very nice looking, but I'm wondering.... - Rich_Crowley, Mon May 23 08:06:18 2005
• Big Meals - Hoppy, Mon May 23 09:36:27 2005
• Opps a correction..... - Hoppy, Mon May 23 09:38:12 2005
• RE: Very nice looking, but I'm wondering.... - Rich_Crowley, Mon May 23 12:03:17 2005
• RE: Very nice looking, but I'm wondering.... - Hoppy, Mon May 23 13:58:05 2005
• Oh and don't think that the medium sized dog........ - Hoppy, Mon May 23 13:59:43 2005