Posted by:
gaboonx
at Tue Apr 14 12:11:47 2009 [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by gaboonx ]
>>Just a report from today. I was on my way to the monitor building and heard a ruckess. A large adult male cottontail rabbit was flipping and spinning madly. I noticed that there was a snake attacked to its side(hahahahahahahaha). The rabbit got loose and much to my surprise, the rabbit did not run off, but circle the pallet that the snake was under(and anchored too during the fight)
>>
>> I couldn't tell if it as a gophersnake or a rattlesnake, so I froze and waited to see what will happen. After the rabbit left, I looked under the pallet and saw a aprox 4foot gophersnake.
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>> This is typical of what we see, they strike first and ask questions latter. It did look like that snake was going to get twisted in two.
>>
>> These types of events always make we think about why so many captive snakes do not have this type of feeding response. Cheers
Its interesting my boas and pythons 95% of the time will strike and constrict there prey even though it was F/T, temp or time of the year doesn't seem to effect this food response. The greatest food response in any snake that I have owned would be my female Burmese python she was an absolute NUT when it came to feed time.
My kings are another story, my cal kings will come out of the cage waiting for there meal I would say 70% of the time and typically don't constrict maybe 40% of the time they will unless of course I make the animal struggle then they tend to pin it down or toss a few coils around the prey item. My milks once they are "starved" have been off feed for more then a week (due to vacation) typically have a very aggressive food response but rarely coil the food item, after brumation a few of my milks would coil but now they are back to taking the prey item and consuming it without any constriction.
With everyone of my animals the more I move the prey item the harder they constrict.
In the wild I have observed an adult black rat eating a dead sparrow. The interesting thing was the sparrow wasn't killed by the snake, it was killed by me the day before and I happen to notice the next day the snake feeding on this dead animal, this was when I started feeding my snakes and every snake since prekilled items 20 years ago.. This male was a pair of black rats that I caught yearly in the same location for almost 4 years. I also feed them pre-killed rodents and after time they started to feed less aggressive.
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Jason A.
"Long time Herper, first year Breeder `07."
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RE: Natural feeding response - gaboonx, Tue Apr 14 12:11:47 2009