Elaphe guttata gratias,
Julie & Grendel
AKA The Chlorine Kid & Snake
---
If I'd known it was harmless, I'd have killed it myself.
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.
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
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
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
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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 --
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Perfectly okay, They will even do this when they are fully grown.
scott
http://members.aol.com/klr117/reptiles/lizards.htm