Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi,

I am getting conflicting advice on this subject and I am Hoping to get your opinions on this,
Where is best to feed My burm? In or out the cage?
I currently feed him in the cage but I have been reading that some of you choose to feed outside of the cage. I am just looking for peoples opinions and reasons for their choice!

Thanks for any input in advance

Phil

well, i dont own a burm, but i find its best to feed in the cage. burms have a strong feeding responce, and ive heard burm owners say they will go after anything warm enough when in feedin mode.

Feeding in the enclosure is the best choice (really the only choice) for feeding large constrictors. The only solid defense for feeding out of the enclosure is so that the snake will develope a feeding response when the door is opened. However this is not the case. As long as you regularly open the cage for other reasons beside feeding your snake will not get conditioned to the door and food.
Problems that arise with feeding outside of the enclosure is the fact that you must handle your snkae after it has been fed. This puts the keeper in a situation that is potentially dangerous. Most snakes stay in feedign mode and will continue to look for more food after it has consumed its meal. When you present yourself to relocate the snake back to its cage you are putting yourself in a position that could have your snake misconstruing you for its next prey item. Secondly you have to handle the snake after a feed which is stressfull to the snake and can result in regurgutaion of its meal. Hope this clears up any doubts about how you should feed. You are doing it correctly and please do not change, Todd

n/p

Forgot to add that it still amazes me how often we have this topic and how many people still insists on feeding out of the cage. It really is like playing russian roulette. Eventually an incident is going to happen. Todd

A problem occurs when you keep more than one snake in one cage. I've got a pair of albinos and a pair of normals. I take the boys out, since they're smaller, and put them in seperate 38 gallon reptariums so everyone is fed in seperate enclosures. I cover up the boy's heads with a towel before picking them up to return them to their cages. I made a mistake last week by not waiting long enough and distracting my normal female before putting her mate back in with her. She was aparently still in feeding mode and attacked her mate like he was another chicken. He ended up with a 6 inch gash in his neck that required stitches and I ended up with a $128 vet bill.

I have experienced this same thing in my past. I used to also house multiple snakes in one enclosure but since then I have stopped and now strongly encourage all keepers to house snakes singly except for the purpose of breeding. In all honasty if you can not afford to house them individually or have the space to house them individually then you shouldn't have that many snakes. I am not bashing you I just feel strongly about this after experience the smae thing first hand. Todd

Although I still feed out of the cage, the only thing that concerns me is the moving of the snake after he's eaten. I am going to try feeding him in the cage to see, gotta see for myself since this is all about opinions, how it goes. As it is now, when he's hungry, he follows my dog when he passes by the cage anyway. If what Todd & Rob are saying is true, then the only concern I have is him getting substrate stuck in his mouth. I'm about to try using sheets to see how that works. We'll see.

DZ

If you still want to use substrate (cypruss, aspen, etc..) you can just place the prey item on a sheet of newspaper during feedings and remove it when finished. Todd

But what do you think about sheets for the entire cage? I don't like the look of newspaper, or sheets for that matter but they won't dry to the floor and peel when I pull them out. Aspen is REAL messy. The new cage I'm building has raised exits so his belly will sort of scrape the substrate as he comes out.

DZ

I personally solely use newspaper as my substrate. I have tried to use other more natural looking substrate but have always found that you never truely get it clean. Sure you can pick up the urates and the actual "poops" but the urine either soaks up or flows to the bottom of the cage where it sits until you change out the entire bedding. This can get kind of expensive if you are dealing with large enclosures. Newspaper may not be the prettiest but I think it is the best. Wad it up, throw it away and replace it. Simple and extremely effective, Todd