Some people consider having an exotic pet as a companion in the home. For example a pet snake, Snakes are relatively easy to care for, but special handling and maintenance is necessary for your safety as well as theirs. A proper care must be enforce to make sure such incidents don’t happen. Aside from making the home similar to the habitat of the snakes, the most important thing is giving the right food. Should you feed your pet snake pre killed prey or live prey?
For your pet snake, feeding pre killed prey is recommended. A live prey can inflict some serious wounds on a snake in self defense. Also if your pet snake unable to quickly kill a live prey item, because hesitates or is not hungry, the snake is the one who might end up injured. Even a small mouse can cause injury to a snake.
Feeding killed prey also let you to buy frozen prey items and keep them in the freezer. It will be easier for you as you have the proper sized prey on hand at all times. Buying the live prey every time your pet snake needs to eat or raising the prey by your own will be more expensive and wasting the time. Many pet stores sell frozen prey or fresh killed prey which you can then freeze for later.
If your snake is eating live prey, you need to start out by offering fresh killed prey at first. Frozen prey need to be completely thawed and warmed slightly before feeding. Defrost it in cold water, not at room temperature. Don’t hold prey with your fingers, dangling and wiggling the prey with tongs to entice the snake to take the prey. If your snake still unwilling to eat, you can try dipping the prey in chicken broth, or puncturing the skull of the prey to expose brain.
The size of the prey A snake should be fed a size of prey that is about the same size around snake’s body at the widest point. Meaning that as your snake grows; you need to adjust the size of prey fed to the snake to accommodate the snake’s increasing size. To find the right size of prey on the pet stores, simply use a piece of string to take the measurement around your pet snake at the widest part of its body then take the string cut to the pet store. So you can do a quick check of the circumference of the prey available to find the best match. It doesn’t have to be an exact measurement. Little bit smaller or slightly larger prey is fine too and a bit of variety never hurts.
A snake have unique jaws that allow them to swallow the prey that is larger than their head, but your pet snake may have difficulties to digesting overly large prey, resulting in regurgitation. This is considered to be a waste of money since your pet snake will just spit it out after.
Avicenna writes various articles about exotic pet, snakes, turtles and others.