How soon do I feed again?

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Kirk1701

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Hi everyone,

It was my young Pretzel’s feed night last night, I thought after having a pinkie rat last week he would be able to handle an adult mouse.

Seems I was incorrect, this morning I found it in his enclosure. It looks like he tried and got to the shoulders/chest before giving up and spitting it out. My question is how soon should I offer him food again? Obviously I also need to go get something slightly smaller than an adult mouse to try next time.


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Hi everyone,

It was my young Pretzel’s feed night last night, I thought after having a pinkie rat last week he would be able to handle an adult mouse.

Seems I was incorrect, this morning I found it in his enclosure. It looks like he tried and got to the shoulders/chest before giving up and spitting it out. My question is how soon should I offer him food again? Obviously I also need to go get something slightly smaller than an adult mouse to try next time.


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As soon as you want. It won't hurt him to offer food everday until eaten. It just costs a lot. Get the right size and you will be fine.
 
I disagree
Offering food every day can be stressful
I would stick with rats but probably go to a small fuzzie rat rather than doing such a large size jump


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I disagree
Offering food every day can be stressful
I would stick with rats but probably go to a small fuzzie rat rather than doing such a large size jump


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If it is related to food size then the next day is fine. It has already eaten before this so trying as many times as you want shouldn't stress it out.
 
If it is related to food size then the next day is fine. It has already eaten before this so trying as many times as you want shouldn't stress it out.

Great! I’ll go get him something slightly smaller today and give it a go tonight. He’s always eager for his feed and was keen for the mouse too but seems it’s was just too big for him.


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If your snake isn't a garbage disposal, it may be best to stick to rats.

If you're unfortunate enough to have a picky eater, they may be a pain in the bum to get taking rats if they prefer mice.
I've only ever had one diamond be this painful, but it sure is annoying lol.


I agree on just offering more food today as he didn't eat yesterday.


I go through periods of feeding fortnightly/monthly (depending on animal size) and feeding whenever the lump is gone/they've toileted. This is called power feeding. I tend to do it to get a little bit of initial size on the animal.
 
+1 for avoiding mice... SOME snakes seem to get a taste for mice and dont want to go back or switch to rats .. i made the mistake of starting out some darwins on mice and some of them have been an absolute pain to get going on rats, some will only take a rat if offered a mouse first! Hassle if your keeping multiple snakes
[doublepost=1525651040,1525650972][/doublepost]Plus they outgrow mice pretty quickly
 
A few things... if it was my snake, I'd leave it for a few days before trying again - there should be no urgency to giving it another feed, and the rejection/regurgitation of an overly large food animal is very stressful for a snake. It also begs the question, why did you offer it such a large food item? Moderate sized meals are ALWAYS to be preferred.

I have never experienced any difficulty switching from mice to rats when the snake has reached an appropriate size. There does seem to be some notion amongst keepers that there is an urgent need to get snakes onto rats absolutely as soon as they can get a pink rat down their gullet. I have always allowed my snakes to transition through to large adult mice before moving to rats, because to go from very undeveloped mice to very undeveloped rats denies the snake the benefits of fur, fully developed bones (for calcium) and the much more nutritious gut contents that weaner to adult mice offer. Then onto weaner rats which have fur and all the other stuff as well. Pink to fuzzy mice and pink to fuzzy rats are just blobs of watery meat really. Not much nutrition in them at all...

Jamie
 
Fair point on the nutritional side of things Jamie . Agree with you there , guess i just have personally found that some fussy snakes for whatever reason find mice irresistible compared to rats!! In saying that i have noticed that some yearlings i have still on mice (always have) are not as big as the ones fed on rats relatively same size ??
 
I have had the occaisonal animal that has been painful to get onto rats though it is few and far between, (and mainly carpets).

I would normally leave them at least a couple of days in the situation above but just based on stress, if they leave a feed there is a lot of energy exerted over a long period of time to get no benefit and I have known animals go off food for an extended period after such a situation.

Agree with Jamies points about food sizing 100%, why does everyone want to stuff their animals with the biggest feed they can?
I baulk when I hear of the super jumbo rats at 400g people are shoving down their animals. Maybe mine are starved. (Probably a conversation for another thread if someone wants to run with it)
 
A few things... if it was my snake, I'd leave it for a few days before trying again - there should be no urgency to giving it another feed, and the rejection/regurgitation of an overly large food animal is very stressful for a snake. It also begs the question, why did you offer it such a large food item? Moderate sized meals are ALWAYS to be preferred.

I have never experienced any difficulty switching from mice to rats when the snake has reached an appropriate size. There does seem to be some notion amongst keepers that there is an urgent need to get snakes onto rats absolutely as soon as they can get a pink rat down their gullet. I have always allowed my snakes to transition through to large adult mice before moving to rats, because to go from very undeveloped mice to very undeveloped rats denies the snake the benefits of fur, fully developed bones (for calcium) and the much more nutritious gut contents that weaner to adult mice offer. Then onto weaner rats which have fur and all the other stuff as well. Pink to fuzzy mice and pink to fuzzy rats are just blobs of watery meat really. Not much nutrition in them at all...

Jamie
Hi Jamie,

I incorrectly offered it, I probably should have realised when I was buying the mice that they would be too large for him right now but without a reference I'm not great at spatial stuff. By the time I went to offer it to him I kinda realised it might be too big but it was defrosted so I thought I'd give it a go. I was also trying to avoid giving him more pinkie rats (he only had the one because they were out fo the equivalent sized mice), because I've seen it talked about before that bones and fur are important for a snakes development.

I didn't manage to get to the pet shop before it closed yesterday but will go today and get him an in-between sized mouse for dinner tonight.
 
Fair point on the nutritional side of things Jamie . Agree with you there , guess i just have personally found that some fussy snakes for whatever reason find mice irresistible compared to rats!! In saying that i have noticed that some yearlings i have still on mice (always have) are not as big as the ones fed on rats relatively same size ??

Well, you know what they say... size isn't everything! I am of the very firm opinion that we way overfeed our snakes in captivity, even hatchlings, but there's a practical reason for us to want to get them out of the "delicate" hatchy zone to make management easier. For me, snakes take as long as they like to grow, and we all know that some remain reluctant feeders for a very long time. If they only feed once every two months or so, that's the way they are, but usually over time they come around and will catch up surprisingly quickly. It doesn't usually mean they're less vigorous, just of a different nature, as long as they are feeding. Some of my adult animals, especially those in aviaries, are lucky to get a feed every six to eight weeks, and they're still fatter than the wild animals we see around the house here.

Jamie
 
So it happened again last night!

This time it wasn’t the size of the food though, it appears he got 3/4 of the way done eating then gave up again.

I’m wondering if it could be a temperature thing? It took him a while to eat and he is only small so he would get cold easily. And it’s starting to be chilly here overnight (down to 7 degrees last night).

My plan now is to leave him alone till Sunday (his normal feeding day) then offer again. Does that sounds ok?


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Are you heating overnight? What are the current temps? I'd leave him alone till you figure out why he's doing it.
He has heating 24/7, heat mat under 1/3 of the enclosure. I checked temps this morning, 21-22 on the cool side, 28-29 on the warm side and 32 in his warm hide.
 
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