• 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.

Feet First?

S

Skazzle

New member
I read the other day that snakes always eat head first. I read that they immobilize their prey, then reorient themselves and swallow the head first. I dropped my snake into the paper bag to feed on his first pinky in my possession. He almost immediately latched onto the snake, then without constricting or anything he just started swallowing the still moving live mouse starting with it's feet. Is this normal? I intent to start feeding my mice frozen soon, so I suppose it won't even be an issue, but has anybody else experienced a snake feeding feet first. Or does anybody have any idea why my snake did that?
Thanks!
 
I think that is a very common thing when feeding a pinky to a snake. It's as if they know that the mouse cannot hurt them so they just swallow it down without constricting and without worrying about which end they swallow first.

I wouldn't worry about it unless you were feeding a larger mouse to your snake (after the mouse has its eyes open).
 
Rose always used to eat tail first, but as soon as I switched her to hoppers (they have fur), she started eating head first. I always thought that her eating tail first was hilarious.
 
The last two live pinkies (before I switched to f/t and could manipulate the position Annie would take them) went down tail first...quite a sight!!!
 
Lady G ate them butt first for months and months. But she would constrict the heck out of them, while throwing herself about her critter keeper. I remember telling her "Alright already, the thing is dead."
 
Of course, a couple of times she tried to eat it from the side..... figured out pretty quick that her mouth wouldn't open that wide :rolleyes: :D
 
Ruby tries to eat from the side at first too. she just grabs on and then slowly moves around the pinky with her mouth until she gets an end.
i've only had one corn regurge after eating a fuzzy tail first.
i have read that it's not good for them to eat tail first if the mouse is larger than a hopper. the legs must get all tangled instead of just laying flat against the body or the mouse's coat gets pushed in the wrong direction and the snake cant digest the mouse well if it's backwards i guess. with pinkies there isnt much to worry about, everything is all smushy rubbery still.
Blaze almost ate all his pinkies butt first. when i switched him to fuzzies he ate his first one tail first and regurged it soon after. after that, he ate them head first.
 
Rose has problems eating sometimes. The other day when I fed my snakes, I put the mice in at the same time. They both constricted them and the whole works. Lily, my BP, was halfway down her mouse before Rose figured out where her mouse's head was. :grin01: Her body was wrapped around the mouse's middle, and her head was on the butt side of the mouse. She was nosing around the mouse's butt and then she finally figured out to go OVER herself. :rolleyes:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top