Feeding in viv...wrong?

[CornDazzle]

I have been feeding my 3 in their 3 viv's all this time, 5 months. Never have I been attacked. They figure out the difference between food and my wanting to handle them, quickly.

 

[mbdorfer]

Not necessarily wrong. Just make sure they can't ingest substrate with their meal. I prefer separate feeding containers mainly because I have quite a few snakes and it forces me to handle them at least once a week :cheers:

 

[Mary-Beth]

I personally don't think they learn that hand = food if you feed in the viv. If it worked that way wouldn't the snake think your hand is food when you're getting him/her out of the feeding tub?

The reason I feed out of the viv is so the snake doesn't ingest any substrate. They can potentially die from impaction if they accidentally swallow some of the substrate while eating a mouse.

 

[ghosthousecorns]

I had a snake die from substrate ingestion about 3 years ago, it makes me cringe when people post feeding pics and the snake is being fed in the viv. I think being bitten has more to do with whether your hand smells like a food item, though!

 

[Lizart777]

I'd say the same: watch out that the snake doesn't swallow any substrate!
I only handle my snakes before feeding. Take them out of viv, watch them when they are in my hands (one at a time of course)do they look good, then they go into another box with their food. I let them eat and let them get back in the viv. If possible without touching them or otherwise I just guide them into the viv.
But I never feed them where there is substrate!
Liz

 

[MegF.]

I had two that I fed in the viv (on paper towel) and they never bit. As a matter of fact, they became easier to handle because I wasn't always reaching in there to handle them, but sometimes I brought food. If the only time you opened the viv was to feed, then I think you would train a food response and get tagged. As long as you handle them in between, change the water, work in the viv, they shouldn't ever get an automatic strike response. My Green Tree Pythons are only fed in the viv, and neither of them bite when I go into the viv at other times (unless it's at night of course).

 

[SeethersWind]

I just don't understand how snakes can die from eating wood chips but their stomachs digest bone? How is it possible? It doesn't make sense to me.. I know its true but it just doesn't seem logical...
can someone tell me what happens or how that works out?

 

[Billybobob]

I just don't understand how snakes can die from eating wood chips but their stomachs digest bone? How is it possible? It doesn't make sense to me.. I know its true but it just doesn't seem logical...
can someone tell me what happens or how that works out?

It is pretty simple their digestive track is not designed to digest wood. I know it is a little more complicated but this was just a basic explanation.

 

[SeethersWind]

But bone is so much more dense than wood so It just seems like their stomach acids or what ever would be able to handle it... then again, humans cant digest some things either, like chewing gum. . so I guess it makes just as much sense as that does. . .

just one of those things i guess..



lol one of those.. . scientific things I'll never comprehend..

 

[Billybobob]

But bone is so much more dense than wood so It just seems like their stomach acids or what ever would be able to handle it...

Snakes digestive tracks are designed to handle the bones that is where they get most of their calcium from. Its all because of evolution they have had a long time to adjust to digesting bones but since they don't eat wood they never developed the ability to digest it.

 

[SeethersWind]

That makes sense to me but it's still wierd that thier digestive sytems aren't used to eating wood, because I would imagine out in the wilderness they might eat a chunk of bark or something. . . but I guess those ones would die.. anyway, thanks for explaining. . it still seems wierd. But its a fact that they can't digest it so, I guess I'll just have to live with that. . .

 

[Billybobob]

Not all snakes that ingest wood end up dead. It is kind of like humans and corn (now that is a pretty picture uke01: ). Sometimes they just pass it though some times it causes problems like impaction. It is not the wood that kills them it is the problems that can develop.

 

[SeethersWind]

Ok, that makes the most sense so far I think. It more the fact that the wood gets stuck and causes problems. its not like how dogs die if they eat too much chocolate..

I see, its all becoming much clearer.. yes.

 

[coyote]

This is what I remember from Biology.

Take several hundred sugar molecules and bind them together. You get starch.
Take several hundred starch molecules and bind them together. You get cellulose.
Cellulose is wood.

Plant cells are distinguished from animal cells by having a cell wall made of cellulose.

Very few species have the digestive enzymes and/or cellulose digesting organisms to enable them to break cellulose back down into sugar. Most that do are specialists,strict herbivores or wood eaters like ruminants and termites. Even ruminants and termites can't utilize cellulose without living bacterial symbiotes doing the "preliminary simplification" for them.

Since snakes never evolved to utilize cellulose as a food source they never evolved the components that enable its breakdown.

Cattle et al don't have the digestive components for breaking down chiton. Such as hair, toenails and exoskeletons are made of. Chiton is looong molecules of hundreds of proteins bonded together.

Moral: Too much fiber/indigestibles will block anybody up.

 

[MegF.]

Excellent education there, Coyote! The other thing is, raw bone if far softer and more easily digested than wood would be. If you cooked the bone to hardness, I think there would be a problem for the snake as well.