Things I'm just curious about

[schnebbles]

1. What is feeding tails? just the tail of a larger mouse?

2. If snakes eat b/c they sense the heat, why don't they try to eat our finger? Or isn't all based on the heat? If they really don't like the scent of a pinky but eat it b/c it's warm then why would our fingers not be food?

I was reading about the force feeding and I come up with questions. Just trying to learn as much as I can.

[atmox]

1: curious about that myself

2: probably because they also see the other 6-8 foot attached to that finger lol.

[Christen]

1) Yes it is feeding the tail of an older mouse.

2) It is not all based on heat. Corn snakes and other colubrids don't have heat pits. Corns are opportunistic eaters so they eat pretty much everything in the wild. They have eaten mice, lizards, even frogs. We just "train" them to eat mice only because that is easier for us to come by. And yes they don't eat us (well most) because they know we are to big for them. Some have tried but will quickly let go once they realized they are biting off more than they can chew or swallow. Ha ha

[schnebbles]

ok, that makes sense! My snake would never try to eat my cat would it? I know not now but say when it was full grown? I would think it would realize the cat is too large as well but someone just said be careful.

So it is not true then, that when a snake gets something in his mouth and starts swallowing, he cannot release it? I thought I read that somewhere. I saw a pic of a snake eating/swallowing his own tail. would you just pull it's tail out if that ever happened? I don't even know where I saw the picture.

[Christen]

No you don't have anything to worry about. I would say maybe if you had a red tail boa but a corn wouldn't even get big enough to eat an 8 week old kitten, maybe a brand new kitten but even that would be decent size snake.

Yes they can let go and I am sure the picture you saw was from Kathy Love. Ha ha I don't think she even knows why the snake ate it's tail or why it didn't let go. You could try to pull food out of it's mouth but unlikely that you could. They usually start gripping pretty good if there is any resistance and you do run the risk of injuring them if you do.

[schnebbles]

Ok - well, I had read never to feed together b/c they could each go for an end of the mouse and I thought I read that once they clamped down they couldn't release. The girl I got them from said she had that happen once and she ended up cutting the mouse in half to separate them.

I do wonder if the snake who was eating his tail let it go. That was a very strange picture.

I'm feeling like a sponge here, learning so much! Thank you :)

[Christen]

Ha ha ha I am so glad that you got the snakes. So she fed them together at the same time? Yeah with something like that they would keep going until one reached the end of the snake. They can and do eat each other as well. That is one of the main reasons not to house them together.

And you are so welcome. Thank you for asking. I know just this week I have heard so many myths about snakes that I wish would die.