Snake eating backwards?
tho...@chmbp2.tamu.edu
Grendel (the corn snake) appears to be settling in nicely, so
I fed him last night. One thawed pinkie, one (I hope) hungry snake,
into the ventilated tupperware dish. Snake ignores food and sticks
tongue out of holes. Snake finds food, eats food butt-first (mouse's
butt, not snake's.) It looked like it went down (in?) ok, but I'm
worried. Is there a chance he could hurt himself doing this?
Should I try to make sure the prey is pointed the right way next
time? Am I worrying too much? (That's a given.) Husband says
snake takes after keeper who has spent her life opening cereal
boxes at the bottom.
Elaphe guttata gratias,
Julie & Grendel
AKA The Chlorine Kid & Snake
---
If I'd known it was harmless, I'd have killed it myself.
Cliff Spence
not a problem. Captive snakes have more of a tendency to take their
food from the wrong end. If the prey is live (and bigger than a pinky),
then when it is grabbed from behind it can turn around. With a good set
of claws, and a strong will to survive, this can cause a great deal of damage
your snake, possibly resulting in death. However, when the prey is frozen,
this isn't a concern. Snakes can take their prey in either direction, but
the only reason they take it from the front in the wild is for their own
protection. You have nothing to worry about.
Paul J Hollander
>
>Grendel (the corn snake) appears to be settling in nicely, so
>I fed him last night. One thawed pinkie, one (I hope) hungry snake,
>into the ventilated tupperware dish. Snake ignores food and sticks
>tongue out of holes. Snake finds food, eats food butt-first (mouse's
>butt, not snake's.) It looked like it went down (in?) ok, but I'm
>worried. Is there a chance he could hurt himself doing this?
>Should I try to make sure the prey is pointed the right way next
>time? Am I worrying too much? (That's a given.) Husband says
>snake takes after keeper who has spent her life opening cereal
>boxes at the bottom.
Swallowing prey tail first isn't terribly uncommon. Corns seem to key
in on moisture. A fresh killed adult has tears and saliva. A pinky's
eyes haven't opened, so there are no tears. And the mouth tends to dry
out in freezing. But a little urine may be squeezed out when handling
after thawing. So the snake swallows the pinky tail first.
I've seen plenty of mice, both pinkies and adults, swallowed tail first.
None ever gave my snakes any problems. The most bizarre one was a
bullsnake that swallowed an adult mouse sideways by bending it into a
U-shape. It took him a long time to get it down, but it didn't hurt
him, either.
Paul Hollander phol...@iastate.edu
Behold the tortoise: he makes no progress unless he sticks his neck out.
Jeff Barringer
>
> Grendel (the corn snake) appears to be settling in nicely, so
> I fed him last night. One thawed pinkie, one (I hope) hungry snake,
> into the ventilated tupperware dish. Snake ignores food and sticks
> tongue out of holes. Snake finds food, eats food butt-first (mouse's
> butt, not snake's.) It looked like it went down (in?) ok, but I'm
> worried. Is there a chance he could hurt himself doing this?
> Should I try to make sure the prey is pointed the right way next
> time? Am I worrying too much? (That's a given.) Husband says
> snake takes after keeper who has spent her life opening cereal
> boxes at the bottom.
>
>
> Julie & Grendel
> AKA The Chlorine Kid & Snake
> ---
--
"Most amplifiers only go up to 10 but mine goes up to 11 so it's louder"
http://www.io.com/~jbarring/alterna.html
Daniel
Highly doubtful, I think.
If it were, my 4 1/2 foot Burmese would have "given up the Ghost" long
before now. Just twenty minutes ago it swallowed a mouse in that manner,
and it does so frequently whenever the food animal is of a smaller size.
After the mouse, a decent sized rat was eaten head-first, as usual. From
what I have experienced with my snakes, I'd have to guess that if the
food item is in correct physical proportion to the size of its eater, the
snake will have little choice but to swallow it head-first. If it is
possible to do otherwise, then prey is most likely small enough to do so
without any concern.
My previously mentioned python once swallowed a good sized rat SHOULDER
FIRST! Now THAT was scary!
Good luck.
Daniel
James Thompson
>
>
Snake finds food, eats food butt-first (mouse's
> butt, not snake's.) It looked like it went down (in?) ok, but I'm
> worried. Is there a chance he could hurt himself doing this?
I have a full grown cornsnake and he occasionally eats a mouse
backwards. It's not the best thing, but it hasn't seemed to
bother him. My snake is funny when he eats. He arches his head
and looks at and prods the mouse from many different angles before
he finally eats it...often taking the middle part of the mouse
in his mouth and then walking it into position so that he can eat
it head first, but, as I said, sometimes he makes a mistake.
It's great to read your posts. It's so nice to hear such whole-
hearted enthusiasm for him.
Enjoy,
Ellen
Heather Smith
I've got two female corn snakes just a little older than Grendel, and they
both do the same thing (They're both 8 months old now). Anyway, the only
time they run into problems (which is just amusing entertainment for me,
not actually a problem for them) is when they get to the front legs and they
get snagged. It's pretty funny to watch, actually. Silly snake sits there
for a few moments with the mouse legs sticking out, I'd swear it's
wondering what to do next. ;)
Sounds like yours is feeding well. Mine were 2 months when I got them, and
needed some encouraging -- dangling and bopping them lightly with the
pinky did the trick. 'Course, if you're going to dangle the pinky around
sort of lifelike-ish, you'll want to use some kind of tweezers or
something. Their aim tends to be a little off. ;)
As for hide boxes, you might find Grendel has a favourite from week to
week? My snow and amel are way spoiled and have plenty to choose from, but
they'll scorn all but one for a week, and then the next week they go for a
change of scenery and it's the other boxes that are doing nothing but
littering up the tank. We use newspaper for substrate... if your heating
pad is too hot, you could put extra newspaper on that side of the tank;
it's a good insulator.
Let us all know how Grendel's doing, he sounds like a great snake. :)
Heather
The late Kyle Wohlmut
indication that you should move up to larger prey-- if your snake is
swallowing food backwards regularly, without any trouble, it's
probably time to move up to the next size food item. IMO an
appropriate size food item will require the snake to stretch a good
bit, and will force the snake to swallow it in the most streamlined
way (head-first).
/^\^/^\^/^\^ http://www-csli.stanford.edu/users/kyle/ ^\^/^\^/^\^/^\
Kyle Wohlmut -- The 4.15 Stanford Executive -- Heute brau ich, morgen
back ich, uebermorgen hol ich mir der Koenigin ihr Kind. Ach, wie gut
dass niemand weiss dass ich ky...@csli.stanford.edu heiss --
\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/^\^/
scott luczak
tho...@chmbp2.tamu.edu wrote:
>
>Grendel (the corn snake) appears to be settling in nicely, so
>I fed him last night. One thawed pinkie, one (I hope) hungry snake,
>into the ventilated tupperware dish. Snake ignores food and sticks
>butt, not snake's.) It looked like it went down (in?) ok, but I'm
>worried. Is there a chance he could hurt himself doing this?
>time? Am I worrying too much? (That's a given.) Husband says
>snake takes after keeper who has spent her life opening cereal
>boxes at the bottom.
>
>Elaphe guttata gratias,
>
Perfectly okay, They will even do this when they are fully grown.
scott
http://members.aol.com/klr117/reptiles/lizards.htm
