Food Size??

[Crazy Deb]

I have read that you should not feed anything that is thicker than the widest part of your snake. My little BCI today ate a rat that we were positive was way too big for him. Last week he ate a mouse sideways and I panicked because i thought he was going to kill himself trying to get it down. When you are talking about food size is that when the food item is stretched out like they usually are when they are dead? Do you exclude the fuzziness of the fur? (This always makes things look bigger) My Ball python seems to have gone off eating (normal I know) so I tried a stunned rat on him. He refused to eat it so I thought instead of wasting it I would try the Boa. When we put him in the 'feeding' container I said there's no way he can possibly eat that thing, We were about to take it out when he struck, constricted, killed ( like the poor rat was moving anyway) and ate it! Gives gone in 60 seconds a whole new meaning for me! I was shocked. My little guy looks about 1/2 the thickness of the rat. How are you supposed to be able to judge what size food to give?