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food size/snake size
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by keyz on February 7, 2006
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Hi all, I have recently been keeping my male and female Royals together, the larger male has not fed since the change (about 2 months now) but the smaller female is taking on some unusually large meals meant for the larger male, This has happend twice now and she has taken her rat pup and then gone on to eat a whole day old chick, and she is bareley 2 feet long, A week prior to this she also ate a medium sized rat also so I am now obviously going to have to separate them when feeding! as you should do that anyway, but I was really wondering wether these bigger food items may cause some damage to her, but if anyone knows, please let me know if a snake will or can get a dangerously large food item past its glotis if it could then cause an internal injury especially the beak on the day old chick, concerned. keyz.
also I have heard that a large food item or two could possibly begin to rot before digestion? as a snakes metabolism is resonably slow is this possible aswell,and
should I raise the hot spot temp to help speed digestion if she requires it? I think thats 3 questions but any answers will be useful Keyz,Jake,
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RE: food size/snake size
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by petra on February 7, 2006
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Hi Keyz.
#1 your male may not want to eat if your female started to release pheromones. Are you trying to breed them? That may be the reason she is so hungry too as she will eat only a little or not at all while gravid.
#2 the rule of the thumb is never to feed your snake meal wider than the widest part of it's body and no more than two or three prey items at the time.
#3 yes if the food was too big it may start rotting inside your snake and snake will regurgitate or get a diarrhoea - either way it's not good.
#4 to ensure good digestion the temp has to be right - colder will slow it down but, you don't want to raise temperature more than required you'll hurt the snake.
Hope I helped :)
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RE: food size/snake size
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by LarryDFishel on February 7, 2006
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Petra gave very good general answers. I would add two things.
1) Ulness your day old chicks are a lot bigger than what I'm used to seeing they shouldn't be a problems for a 2 foot python. A medium rat sounds awefully big, but people have different interpretations of "medium", so it's hard to tell without seeing it.
2) I personally know of only one case of a snake choking on a prey item and it was one of mine. Way back before I was old enough to know I didn't know everything I had a 4 foot retic in a cage with an 8 foot burmese, and the retic tried to eat a small chicken that I left in for the burm. He got it half way into his mouth and couldn't get it the rest of the way in or back out and I found him dead when I came back.
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RE: food size/snake size
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by keyz on February 8, 2006
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Thanks Petra+Larry your input is most appreciated and I will post as soon as he feeds but I think I might have to split them up as I hope to breed from them and have an availiable vivarium so that is the easiest and cheapest thing to do once more-thanks again-Keyz
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RE: food size/snake size
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by keyz on February 8, 2006
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Thanks Petra+Larry your input is most appreciated and I will post as soon as he feeds but I think I might have to split them up as I hope to breed from them and have an availiable vivarium so that is the easiest and cheapest thing to do once more-thanks again-Keyz
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