Feeding ball while handling

kazoopython · 02-08-05, 11:43 PM

It's been suggested that I train my ball to feed while handling. Any experience/suggestions regarding this? It seems somewhat risky.

Eric

HumphreyBoagart · 02-08-05, 11:59 PM

Sounds like a great idea to me...if you want him to regurgitate his meals. If he even eats at all. Who suggested this to you?

edit- sorry, this wasn't supposed to be condescending, but after I read it, I realized it sounded that way.
Sorry, wasn't trying to be rude.

kazoopython · 02-09-05, 12:06 AM

I agree. It sounds like like a crazy idea. That's why I posed the question. I've simply never heard of it before.

Eric

BornboreD · 02-09-05, 12:08 AM

I have never EVER heard anything like that all. Doesn't seem like a terribly bright idea to me.

Colin

HumphreyBoagart · 02-09-05, 12:09 AM

Also, you shouldn't handle it for 2 or 3 days after it eats too.
Bornbored:
you're absolutely right. Sounds more like a brightly terrible idea to me.

rwg · 02-09-05, 12:44 AM

I've tried feeding some small colubrids in my hands before just because. The only snake I could ever get to do it was a cali-king with a nutso feeding response. Even she was reluctant though, and we're talking about a snake that will chase my fingers around her cage if she hasn't eaten in the last 3 days.

I think you're unlikely to succeed at it, if you do succeed, then you risk causing a regurgitation which can be quite stressful, plus you are guaranteed to be emanating heat within strike range when the feeding response kicks in. Sure it's only a ball python, but you probably want to avoid a feeding bite.

other Roy

HeatherRose · 02-09-05, 11:47 AM

Suggested by who?

As mentioned above, I don't think it's a great idea, you don't want him to associate handling with feeding, and you don't want any regurging...

I'm too scared to even think about rats when I'm handling my Ball

pablo111 · 02-11-05, 11:59 PM

Here's why its a completely absurd idea:

*Any snake is about as intelligent as a house plant, the difference being that the snake is able to propel itself about at a much higher rate. That said its important to understand that snakes have only a few very distinct modes.

REST mode, HEATING mode, EXPLORING mode, EATING mode, and FLIGHT mode. Combine these with the occasional mating behaviour and you have yourself a snake.

Basically, when you take a ball python out of its tank during the day, you're disturbing it out of either resting or heating mode, and activating exploring mode, which it will stay in as long as it is out of its enclosure until it becomes too cold, frightened, or smells food.

Most snakes, when they detect a prey item nearby, will strike at anything that might be that prey item. This often includes your hand, a stick, even themselves (Its not very impressive to watch your ball python bite itself, then sit in contemplation for a moment... not really knowing what just happened).

If you always feed your snake while you hold it one of the following bad things will happen (maybe both)

1. The snake learns to associate your hand with food. Every time you take the snake out it believes it will be fed. Now feeding mode is activated by coming out of the cage, not just prey detection. In this manner you are making your fingers potention dummy mice, and susceptible to bites, which although painless, really take away from the enjoyment of holding your snake

or

2. Even if it DOESN'T come to associate being out of the cage in and of itself with food, it will invariably at SOME point mistake a small part of you for a small part of a rat or mouse, and then you're not going to like your idea of feeding it in your hand very much any more. Its best to feed a snake in his home unless the snake is very large, in which case it could be dangerous and there's no way you want it to get used to being in food mode in its cage, where you take it from to hold it, or you have bedding which can get stuck to a dead rat and swallowed by your snake... like vermiculite. Not that I know of this to be dangerous, but its undesirable atleast.

All in all, this is an insanely stupid idea. The novelty of watching a rat get snatched out of your hand wears off quickly (I tried this once... Have to admit it WAS cool). Dont forget also, when the snake uncoils and begins trying to swallow, those fingers of yours are AWFULLY close in temperature to that dead rat... know what I mean?

And snakes HAVE been known not to know the head from the tail of a rat...

Spirit · 02-12-05, 12:34 AM

Flight mode... LOL

Will your ball eat on it's own? I'm curious why you were told this... The only reason a snake should be "hand fed" is when it refuses to eat and is on the brink of starvation, in which case you'll have to do one of two things. Hold the head and be like "LOOK FOOD" by gently pressing the meal against it's snout (in which case the snake will 90% of the time open up and attack the prey, ending in eating it), or force the mouth open by the jaws to "force feed".

Both are stressful for the snake, and if a snake is eating on it's own, it shouldn't be in your hand anyway.

But that's just mho.

pablo111 · 02-13-05, 09:25 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Spirit
Flight mode... LOL

Even more impressive is landing mode, with the undercarriage fully extended and the landing flaps at full extension, any snake is a sight to behold :P

Honestly tho (I guess u knew) flight means escape

Spirit · 02-13-05, 09:30 PM

I did, but I pictured a snake jumping then gliding to it's landing spot. Made me LOL... Of course thanks to your "flaps at full extention" comment, I'm now I'm seeing one wearing flight goggles and flying an airplane...

bloodbeard · 02-13-05, 09:44 PM

are there not there certain speicies of snake that can glide, i cant remember them of hand, but they look damn funny jummping from tree to tree

rwg · 02-16-05, 07:59 AM

Chrysopelea

There's some video of them gliding if you google hard enough.

jfmoore · 02-16-05, 02:20 PM

Re: Flying Snakes

If you’re interested in this topic, a good place to start is Jake Socha’s web site http://www.flyingsnake.org/

For a nifty half-hour program geared toward a mass audience, try to catch the “Flying Snakes” episode of the Snake Wranglers series on the National Geographic Channel.

RepTylE · 02-16-05, 03:29 PM

What would possess someone to want to hold a snake while it is feeding? If anyone does that, I would suggest developing good reflexes considering the feeding responses in most snakes.
BP's on the other hand can be skittish about feeding so it wouldn't seem to be a good idea to me.