Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Only a couple of weeks old and already pounding frozen thawed jumbo mice! I was very suprised by this litter. 15 alive, 3 stillborn and 30 slugs. But those that made it were lovely at least. Here is my favorite, hope you enjoy.

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why would you be feeding such a young snake so large of a meal? This can't be good for them. You must have had some giant babies. My yearlings are just now starting on large mice (actually rats that are the size of lg mice). I think they'd be happier/healthier with smaller meals. Again, that's a nice pic. Take care, David
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--aka DMOG68

They were huge babies at almost 20" in length. Not all were that large, but those that were happy taking the adult mice. In fact, the lump was not very noticable. The meal represented about 40% of the neonates body weight. Certainly not a large meal by juvenile snake standards.
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Jumbo Mice are about 35-45 grams (weight chart via Rodentpro.com) that makes very a huge meal for a baby snake. Even at almost 20” long that is crazy. The other fellow was correct, my yearlings are just now taking Jumbo Mice and they are nearly 3 feet long. That is a lot of meal to be “pounding” for a snake that is just a month or two old.
Obesity in young snakes can cause constipation in them resulting in prolapsed bowls, especially in neonates because there muscles have not developed strongly yet to prevent it.
You quoted the weight of the prey item to be 40% of the snakes total body weight. So I am assuming (I know it is a bad thing to do) that the prey animal is 40 grams and the snake is 100 grams, or at least that makes it nice and easy for the numbers. I have a 10 foot Boa that is weighing in a 60lbs. That would be the equivalent of feed that snake a 24 lbs animal! (Medium sized dog). I actually feed that snake a four pound rabbit at most! That is 7% of the snake’s total weight in food.
It is a very pretty snake, but I would slow down a bit on the food intake
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

I just reread your post and this snake is only a couple of weeks old, not a couple of months! Dang it should have only been fed once at the most twice alreay! It should not be pounding anything!
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

I guess I stand corrected on my husbandry.

Just some more stats just for the record:

Three hatchlings took adult mice.

Neonate weights at birth 4/26/05:

1 86g
2 87g
3 89g

Feedings began post shed as follows:
4/27 hopper mouse
5/6 rat pup (Frozen thawed)
5/17 "Rodentpro" jumbo mouse (on the small end of jumbo ie around 35-37g)

The lenths at birth were 20", approximate at time of last feeding was assumed to be roughly that long as well.
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Support your local herp society
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Still big darn baby boas LOL. I use rodentpro my self and I can't even think that one of my normal babies could even get the jumbo mice down LOL.
Good luck with them
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com

Has never crossed my mind before. It happens about once per week when my neighbors dog starts barking at midnight!
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Jim Hopkins "Hoppy"
Hopkins Holesale Herps
Hopfam1@aol.com