Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My cal king and my boa do, but my ball and corns just swallow.

yes, all constricters do.. its strange your ball doesnt, but ive heard of kings doind it....

Not all the time. Individual snakes within the same species can consume dead prey completely differently. Dfr has some snakes that have completely varied responses during feeding. Some constricting some just taking it from his hand and swallowing it. It depends on the snake.

Arik

My Green actually doesn't strike, but still coils. It used to strike, but now if I dangle the rat in front of her, she will just move away from it or keep going past it, turn around and then start coiled with her neck. Otherwise I can just kind of bob the rat up and down in the water anywhere around her body, and then she will just take that part and coil around it

~Ben

` I've come to the conclusion that there's no set behavior for feeding response in Anacondas, or any other Boid. You can get a good idea of how they're going to feed when they're babies. That's when it's safest to experiment with them. Although, I have had a couple of gentle feeders mature into more aggressive feeders, I have also had aggressive babies mature into gentle feeders.
` As far as coiling, some of my critters throw a coil around their meal, then use the grip to shove the food down their throat. They don't constrict, just use the coil as we use our hands to feed our faces.
` Most of my Yellow Anacondas have quite mild feeding responses. My largest female, who I sold as a baby, was raised by someone who made her kill all her food. When I got her back, her feeding response was frightening. She will eat dead food, but she always attacks it and KILLS it. When she smells her food thawing, she gets VERY aggressive. She's a big girl, and I take NO chances when feeding her.
` My giant Yellow male, as a neonate, took his first meal from my fingers, and just swallowed it. He still does the same. I call his feeding response lazy. Why work hard, when you can be hand fed? When he smells food, he gets active, but when fed, he doesn't react until I bump him in the snout with the food. Then, he just opens up and let's me place it in his mouth. When I have given him food items that are too large, he has used a coil to assist swallowing. I now give him rats that are not gigantic, and easy to swallow, about one pound. When he gets full, and you bump his nose with another, he acts like he just can't open his mouth again. He'll sit there and taste it with his tongue, but instead of opening up, he jerks his head back and forth. It almost looks like he's saying NO.

` I would NEVER do this with any large constrictor who I didn't know VERY VERY well. You could get yourself good and DEAD !
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Anna and Dellow coiled around there food when i first feed them but dont any more. Annie has the "lazy" he will not coil around any thing. All my other snakes will just eat there food and not coil around it.

CrazyCody

n/p