hey im wondering how long it takes to be able to handle my juvenile ball python after i feed it thanks
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how long does it take for them to fully digest?
maiden_canada
Sep 05, 2003 01:09 AM
Replies (1)
longtang
Sep 05, 2003 08:46 AM
>>hey im wondering how long it takes to be able to handle my juvenile ball python after i feed it thanks
Even the most biggest prey should be digested within four days.
If you feed regular sized prey, 24 to 48 hours after feed should be fine for handling.
The reason four days is the magic number is that in nature, food in tummy more than four days old would rot and ferment in the tummy.
I once read an article on snakes and very large prey. I don't remember the link to the article. However, the article said that large snakes that eat extreme sized prey can increase their metabolism to an incredible rate. They have to do this so that the food can be digested in a timely manner.
The article also said that they spend a lot of energy to digest oversized prey. (speedy digestion is an energy consuming venture). The snakes will increase their respiratory rate and heart rate several fold their normal rates. They expend energy to such an extend that they only net about 40% of the food item's energy from the oversized meals. The rest of the energy was expended during the digestion itself.
This only applies to oversized preys (like when a retic eating an antelope or the burmese eating a large four leged hoof'd animals).
Based on that article, I always think of four days as the cut off mark for digestion of any food item that I feed my snakes. Four days is the window in which nature dictates that they must have the food finished digesting. Otherwise, the food will ferment and cause gas to bloat the intestinal tracks and possibly kill a snake. In fact, in the same article, they do say that some snakes eat so large of a prey that they have died from the complications "eating themselves to death"
In practical terms, however, it is unlikely that in captivity that Ball pythons will die from large food. This is because we control their food and they also back out of food that are too large. In my case, I am pretty comfortable feeding as large as the BP will choose to eat.
cheers
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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.
