She finally gobbled down her for first rat

[bigsnakegirl785]

Originally Posted by EL Ziggy

@ BSG- I'm pretty lucky too. It's usually only my kings that will take food breaks and all of my other snakes can smash the jumbo mice they might refuse. I tend to feed my snakes fairly liberally, especially when they're younger than two, but if they get a larger than average meal or a snack between feedings I'll just delay their next meal a while longer. I'd also offer another snake a snack before I tossed away a perfectly good prey item. I try to stagger my feedings so there's always a hungry snake that's ready to eat. Tonight I'll feed 3 of my carpets. If by some remote chance one or more of them were to refuse their meal, both of my bull snakes are ready to go since they haven't eaten in a couple of weeks. Most of my snakes can easily interchange prey sizes. I have a couple that eat large rats, several that eat mediums, and all but my Bredli can eat smalls or chicks.

Well there's such a huge difference between prey items it'd be a bit ridiculous to try to feed them something. Something like: snake on jumbo mice gets large rat. The snakes I have that are closest in size are Nymeria, Bud, and Tirel. Nymeria is eating jumbo mice because she's still too small for weaned rats, and Tirel is on weaned rats. Nymeria could eat a weaned rat if push comes to shove, and Tirel could take a small, but I really try to limit how often they eat big meals so I can feed them on a regular schedule. Since Bud is on smalls, Tirel could take anything he refused, but he would not be able to get a large rat down without a chance for internal damage. I try not to overfeed my snakes, and they grow pretty well on the way I feed them. They're not going to be as big as a snake that's liberally fed, but all considering they're really not that far behind in growth compared to the "average" at all.