Reptile & Amphibian Forums

ok. more questions. my corn finally ate the pinkie. one problem, he ate it alive! is this dangerous to Tech (my albino)? or what? i didnt really expect him to eat it alive.
he was given frozen at the pet store where i bought it from. did he not know he had to constrict it first or what?

KIRSTEN

It's okay. I have snakes that routinely swallow live rat pups because they're too excited to bother killing them first. My hognose regularly has a squirming lump in his middle. As near as I can tell, this is harmless. Okay, I don't like it either, but it doesn't appear to do any harm.

You're probably right -- it probably didn't know to constrict. My corns didn't start constricting until they were older. They, like yours, had always been fed thawed prey.

If you can, you might want to just offer frozen/thawed food to your baby. You have a good thing going with a snake that will take pre-killed food, and there's no reason to keep it on live food. It isn't any 'better' for them, and the convenience of feeding thawed is worth it a million times over. You'll be really grateful when it starts to eat full-grown mice (sooner than you think) that you don't have to kill!

I think it's really great that you're that concerned (even if you don't have to be ). If you have any other questions, just let us know. We're always around to help.

Does the snake have a name, by the way?

--Naamah

As a matter of fact, my snake does have a name..TECH. thanks for the help.

KIRSTEN

It's fine. They don't seem to constrict pinks all that often - they probably know that the pink isn't a danger to them and they can handle it without killing it first. I think it does know how to constrict - when presented with a live hopper/adult-sized mouse, my snakes all immediately know what to do - even if they've never eaten live before. (I don't feed live except in certain conditions)
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-audri
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