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I quoted a study earlier in an earlier post. I found the article.

I quote:Zoologists at the University of Jena study digestion process of giant snakes

At the University of Jena, zoologists examined the digestion process of giant snakes. The most modern medical equipment, like supersonics and MRIs, were used for this. That way, the digestion process could be examined (thank God) on the living object.

According to the zoologists, this research has already delivered amazing results: Giant snakes are equipped with some sort of a turbo-digestion, in which the inner organs extract in an extreme manner. The metabolism can reach higher levels than the one of a 100-meter runner.

The reptiles perform heavy-duty labor during the digestion. Amazingly, only the head of the prey is dissolved in the stomach of the animals at first. Only afterwards is the headless body dissolved. Within 2 days, the prey is turned completely into mush. As time passes, the mush then flows into the tube formed intestine. Within a few hours, the digestive tract swells up to three times of its original size.

The weight of the digestive tract also increases drastically. This is the only way that the sudden wave of nourishment can be mastered. In order to digest a whole pig, a giant snake needs little more than a week. During the process of swallowing, the snakes already begin to breathe deeper and heavier. Heart and lungs perform highly.

During the digestion of a large prey item, snakes use forty times as much oxygen as they do while resting. Only racehorses achieve this at full gallop for a few minutes, while giant snakes can keep this up for several days. This digestive maximum performance leads to only half of the calories reaching the energy storages. The rest is already used up during the digestion process.

But, the animals have no choice. They have to digest that quickly. The unchewed prey begins to decay from the inside immediately after being swallowed, producing gases that lead to painful bloatings.
Even far more dangerous are the developing ptomaine. Some giant snakes have eaten themselves to death with oversized prey items. Long breaks in the feeding cycle are necessary, because the intestinal tracts are strained to such a degree, that it sometimes takes months to regenerate them.

End quote.
Look on the bottom of this link and you will find the digestion article.

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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.

Although I think all snakes do digest the head much before the body (I've seen a few regurges that point to that), I think that particular digestion process might be particular to large boids. Perhaps it's a mechanism to keep them from being weighted down by large meals? At any rate it sounds like an arguement NOT to feed snakes huge prey items.

>>Although I think all snakes do digest the head much before the body (I've seen a few regurges that point to that), I think that particular digestion process might be particular to large boids. Perhaps it's a mechanism to keep them from being weighted down by large meals? At any rate it sounds like an arguement NOT to feed snakes huge prey items.

Point well taken. However, I would switch the word Huge with the word "oversized." What I mean by oversized is like an antelope or other baby hoof'd animal.

I have always found that bp's are only able to eat huge preys like big sized rats. However, they are not able to eat oversized prey because I have always foudn that when a prey is too big, they jsut back out.

The way I look at: I think other pythons like burmese and retics are really able to eat oversized prey and I think it would make a good argument not to feed them those, based on that very interesting article.

sincerely
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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.