Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I volunteer at our local zoo. Today one of the volunteers was telling me about something she saw last week when the keeper was feeding the snakes. He said when she gave the snake ( I think it was one of the BPs) it's food, it struck and right when it started to constrict it kind of exploded - they said it was an awful smell and you could see the guts, etc coming out.

What would cause this? Is it just the force of the snake constricting or was something wrong with the rodent?

Just curious.
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"Kira"

Was it a thawed roedent or live/pre-killed? I have had thawed roedents split in the gut area (not "explode" per say) but what I have found with that is they were thawed in too warm of water, and basically cooked. They would also have a not so pleasing odor to them. If it were a live or pre-killed roedent I don't have a clue what it could have been... a suicide bomber loaded with stink bombs, maybe?

It was definetly thawed as the zoo does not feed any live food to the animals (except crickets and worms). I guess it would make sense that it was too warm. Thanks!

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1.0 Ball Python
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1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa
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0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer
"Kira"

Basicaly, the gut releases loads of gases in early decomposision....so if you heat the rodent up when thawing it speeds the whole process up until the gut literaly explodes. The trick is to stop heating it up before this happens. One time i was heating some rodents up and misjudge the timing, when i went to pick up one of them to feed to my snake it exploded in my face. I had rat guts everywhere and boy does that smell!!!

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My Album

1.0 Ball Python
"Aragorn"

1.0 Kenyan Sand Boa
"Gimli"

0.1 Australian Cattle Dog/Pointer
"Kira"

I agree! In my experience if a rodent is thawed at too high of a temp it will burst. Also, some young snakes are over zealous with their constricting abilities lol...but normally this just causes some eye bulging lol!
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*Amy*
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