I fed a very large rat to my female BT yesterday. A friend of mine had some that he needed to get rid of. I wasn't sure if she would be able to swallow it. She initially grabbed it and tried to at first, then spit it out. I wasn't sure now at this point if I would have to cut up the rat or if she would tear it up on her own (which I have never seen before). She worked over the rat chomping at it from every angle. She would grab it, chomp it, then spit it out and go from another angle. In doing this I heard bones crunching and the rat seemed to be turning to mush. It really seemed to me that she was trying to break it down for easy consumption. She then proceeded to swallow it whole.
I have heard of constrictors doing this to swallow large prey items, although I'm not sure if that is even a proven thing.
Do monitors do this? Has anyone seen this before?
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Did my Blackthroat crush to fit???
Replies (8)
I often use F/T rats much too big for the animals to swallow. If you figure the amount of prey per pound and price you will see that huge rats are often a better deal from many suppliers than mice. This means I have to chop the frozen rats into "rat steaks". I know, a horrible job but quickly over with with (scary music comes in here) an axe on an oak log in front of the monitor house. The bloody thawed rat steaks are the top favorite on monitor menus and a velacoraptor-like feeding response is seen. As well I know I saved a lot of cash.
Yeah I have 3 others in the freezer. I'll probably cut them up. I was just curious to see what she would do with a large one.
>>Yeah I have 3 others in the freezer. I'll probably cut them up. I was just curious to see what she would do with a large one.
When my BT has had larger, than her normal rats (usually small to mediums) She does the same thing and yes she crushes them as she swallows.
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1.1.0 YBS
1.3.0 RES
1.0.0 red belly cooter
0.0.2 mud turtles
1.1.0 Savannah Monitor
0.1.0 Blackthroat monitor
0.1.0 Leopard Gecko
0.1.0 Mountain Horned dragon
2.1.0 Ball pythons
1.0.0 Bearded dragons
cats, dog, ferrets, rabbit, rats.
I try to feed smaller items like the gator farms typically do to their gators. Easier for digestion supposedly. Or cutting up is great too. I would just cut them up half frozen like Robyn suggested unless you want your counter to look like friday the 13th was filmed there.
Rodents are MUCH easier to chop when they are still about half frozen. Much less messy as well : )
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robyn@proexotics.com
Solid frozen is not messy at all. I think monitors do like tasty bloody messes better than dry old hairy rodents.
You can also just crack them in half while still frozen 
>>Rodents are MUCH easier to chop when they are still about half frozen. Much less messy as well : )
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>>robyn@proexotics.com
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>>ShipYourReptiles.com
>>Pro Exotics Reptiles
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Mike Heinrich,
Mike@amazontreeboa.org
www.amazontreeboa.org
Yea they do that, then if that don't work, they let it rot then happily consume it. Hmmmmmmmm that makes me hungry. Cheers
