New Snake owner concerned about size of feed for my Simpson Python

[atothej09]

Just a word of caution... don't be too cavalier with very large food items. The advice such as "it'll be OK - he'll just spit it out if it's too big" is dangerous for a novice, and untrue in most circumstances. Many snakes meet an untimely death from eating very large food items, (which rot sooner than they can digest them) from attempting to regurgitate.

I'm not saying that the food was too big in this case, but many keepers on APS with little experience offer advice that is patently dangerous to your animals because they have very little knowledge of reptile physiology.

The old saying "she'll be right" will work most of the time, but when it does go wrong, you'll regret being mislead.

There is no need to feed snakes HUGE meals just because they can eat them, and the member who congratulated you on getting the snake onto rats needs to consider that this is a 1yo small species python. As IgotFrogs has said, mice are perfectly suitable for your snake, for its entire life. They may in fact be better than rats - the have fur and fully calcified bones, both of which are useful for your snake's nutrition and digestive processes.

Jamie

Good comments.
The member still needs to UP size of food. Obviously no-one wants to see their snake regurgitate food, but the girth size vs rat width general rule is a pretty good guide to follow. If this rule is followed, there should be no need for snake to regurgitate at all. An acceptable size meal fed once a fortnight saves the owner having to feed 2 mice/rats in one session.
If the snake eats a rat no worries, then why go back to a mouse? Makes no sense??
I never take a 'She'll be right' attitude, so hope these comments weren't referring to me.
'Keeping and Breeding Australian Pythons' is a good book to purchase. All info is there.

 

[Pythoninfinite]

Good comments.
The member still needs to UP size of food. Obviously no-one wants to see their snake regurgitate food, but the girth size vs rat width general rule is a pretty good guide to follow. If this rule is followed, there should be no need for snake to regurgitate at all. An acceptable size meal fed once a fortnight saves the owner having to feed 2 mice/rats in one session.
If the snake eats a rat no worries, then why go back to a mouse? Makes no sense??
I never take a 'She'll be right' attitude, so hope these comments weren't referring to me.
'Keeping and Breeding Australian Pythons' is a good book to purchase. All info is there.

No, not referring to you! But the point about the relative values of pink rats vs mice with fully developed bones and fur still stands. Pink rats are basically mush with a lot of undifferentiated tissue, whereas a medium to large mouse has a lot more going on in its body.

I agree that pink mice are too small for this one-year-old Antaresia...

Jamie

 

[SYNeR]

My Stimmie doesn't eat rats anyway, so I just stick to larger mice..

 

[PythonLegs]

+1 to the 'she'll be right' crew. Sorry. Snake looks fine mate, nothing to worry about there. Great to see a newcomer doing it right.