Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My 9 month old BRB seems to have decided that eating adult mice backwards is the thing to do. She has only done this two times now. It takes her 10 to 15 minutes to decide which end to try and she goes for the butt. She takes another 10 or 15 minutes to swallow it because it doesn't go down as quickly that way. Otherwise she appears to be in good shape. It just makes me wonder if I should feed larger prey although an adult mouse seems the correct size to me. The first time it happened I just thought it was odd since I haven't ever seen another snake do this before. I really don't think a larger meal would be appropriate. I'm kind of guessing that she is between 26 and 28 inches long now. Anyone have any reasons why I should be concerned?

P.S. I'll go for the porportional thermostat in a few weeks.

Linda

i've seen that several times...but i've never seen it do any harm...except to stress out the keeper

This happens to be the same snake I asked about the fecal on. After another fecal was done I wormed her with panacur then again 7 days later.The second time there were more pinworm ova and some type of strongylide I think. I tried the suggestions I got on another forum-Lugol's and to centrifuge, but I don't think I did it correctly because I saw less ova/artifact in those than with direct and floats. I wasn't really worried about the backwards eating, just noticied what I don't want to become a pattern. Patterns always catch my attention because I think them to me more meaningful than isolated events.

Linda

you are very mindfull of your husbandry.

are you hinting that you suspect possible nerological damage caused by the assumed parasites?

chris

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