According to the Munson plan, I now have to feed my snake double pinks. Do I feed him one mouse right after the first one? Or do I feed him a pinky and then wait 3 days to feed him the second one? Help. 
-
Hello!
Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.
Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....
Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.
Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.
Double Pinks...
- Thread starter themichaelchoi
- Start date
Stars
Moonstruck
According to the Munson plan, I now have to feed my snake double pinks. Do I feed him one mouse right after the first one? Or do I feed him a pinky and then wait 3 days to feed him the second one? Help.
Kathy Love's book says that one pinky every 3 days is fine for hatchlings. But to answer your question, the Munson plan means to feed the two pinkies at one feeding. And that's what I would do.
salvadorian
creatures are people too!
Alright I have a question.... would feeding your snake a second pinky within 24 hours of the first be considered bad?
Zephyr seems very hungry and there is absolutely no lump in her belly from yesterdays pinky.
And Michael, I would definately just put two pinkies in at once. If the snake wants or needs two pinkies, then it will eat them and be fat and happy! Good luck!
Zephyr seems very hungry and there is absolutely no lump in her belly from yesterdays pinky.
And Michael, I would definately just put two pinkies in at once. If the snake wants or needs two pinkies, then it will eat them and be fat and happy! Good luck!
salvadorian
creatures are people too!
That's what I was thinking. I mean, if a snake is hungry, it should eat, right?
Yes!
Michael, I just thought of this, maybe you should place one pinky in the box and allow the snake to eat, and then drop in the second one after the first has been eaten. If they really are hungry they should go right for it.
Carinata
Ever Evolving Exotics
The advice you just gave Michael is spot on! I wish I could rep u!
Suzy
Shazoooooo!
What I do is put the snake in the feeding container, and drop both pinkies in with the snake and put the lid on. They will normally eat one and then the next when they're ready. I find that when feeding 2 prey items, it bothers them more to open the feeding container after they've already eaten one item.
Emily1188
Smells Like a Rat
Nooooo! Keep in mind that in wild food is scarce! They are always on the look out for food and will consume as much as they possibly can. If you feed your snake every time it "seems hungry", you'll have an unhealthy snake!
However, I will say that I feel if there's no lump left, it's time to move the snake to two pinks. I just went through the exact same thing with my little one.
salvadorian
creatures are people too!
Nooooo! Keep in mind that in wild food is scarce! They are always on the look out for food and will consume as much as they possibly can. If you feed your snake every time it "seems hungry", you'll have an unhealthy snake!
However, I will say that I feel if there's no lump left, it's time to move the snake to two pinks. I just went through the exact same thing with my little one.
Haha... I guess you're right... I don't want a big fat fatty snake!
But yeah, I figured that she needed more food than the one pinky, there really was only a lump for the first few minutes after she ate. I fed her another one tonight and she attacked it (the dead mouse) immediately and scarfed it down. Now she has a nice fat belly and I'll wait until the weekend to feed her.
Emily1188
Smells Like a Rat
Yep, I noticed my '09 was lacking a lump and seemed to never settle down to digest. She was very satisfied with her first meal of two pinks.
airenlow
hope is not a strategy
bitsy
Owned by Corns since 1991
Oooh no! A snake "looking hungry" to a human and actually needing food, is not at all the same thing. In the wild, they'd constantly be hunting, because they won't know when their next meal will come along. In captivity, guarantee their food. However, they don't know that and will keep hunting around for more.
You're now a snakey Weightwatchers group leader - they're perfectly capable of eating more than is good for them if you offer it. Your job is to make sure they eat enough to stay healthy without getting fat.
Having said that, in this specific instance the lump is gone within 24 hours which means an increase in feeding is due. However, that's an increase in the amount of food offered at one time. The frequency of feeding should decrease as food size gets larger. I feed two pinkies at a time and they go down the hatch happily.
glenhead
Elder curmudgeon
One thing you need to know about this.
When a snake eats, there is a huge dump of digestive enzymes into its gut. Their systems are so primitive that it's an all-or-nothing deal; it doesn't matter if it's a front foot or two whole pinkies, the enzyme dump is the same. It takes the system a few days to rebuild its stores. (At least that was the case when I was doing snake research back in the late '70s - maybe they've evolved since then. )
That's the main reason it's really important to follow Kathy's "barf protocol" (as I call it (we should all stop using "regurg" - barf is a lot funnier)). The system needs time to both rebuild the digestive juices and recover from whatever abnormal condition caused the barfing in the first place. If you feed too soon, the snake's system dumps what it has (which usually isn't enough to digest things thoroughly), and has to start over. This cycling depletes the snake of essential amino acids and other precursors for the digestive enzymes, and over time it will cause serious problems.
With most snakes the rebuild time is in the neighborhood of three days, as a rule of thumb. If you're going to feed two prey items, feed them both at once, or at least within a couple of hours. No matter what, don't make a habit of feeding more frequently than every three days, and every four as a minimum would be better. Back-to-back days of feeding a couple of times would probably be ok, but it's better to err on the side of caution.
When a snake eats, there is a huge dump of digestive enzymes into its gut. Their systems are so primitive that it's an all-or-nothing deal; it doesn't matter if it's a front foot or two whole pinkies, the enzyme dump is the same. It takes the system a few days to rebuild its stores. (At least that was the case when I was doing snake research back in the late '70s - maybe they've evolved since then.
)That's the main reason it's really important to follow Kathy's "barf protocol" (as I call it (we should all stop using "regurg" - barf is a lot funnier)). The system needs time to both rebuild the digestive juices and recover from whatever abnormal condition caused the barfing in the first place. If you feed too soon, the snake's system dumps what it has (which usually isn't enough to digest things thoroughly), and has to start over. This cycling depletes the snake of essential amino acids and other precursors for the digestive enzymes, and over time it will cause serious problems.
With most snakes the rebuild time is in the neighborhood of three days, as a rule of thumb. If you're going to feed two prey items, feed them both at once, or at least within a couple of hours. No matter what, don't make a habit of feeding more frequently than every three days, and every four as a minimum would be better. Back-to-back days of feeding a couple of times would probably be ok, but it's better to err on the side of caution.