Well it's actually my daughter's but it sits in my living room at the moment in its ***arium (I'm sure it's some sort of arium anyway).

It's still only young, about 18 - 24 inches and gets fed little white mice. So you get a longish pair of tweezers, wiggle the mice to trigger his strike reflex, and try not to jerk your hand back involuntarily when Stan Lee goes for the kill. (You think a snake strike is quick? Watch your own reaction time when this thing launches at your hand)

So here's the thing. Poor little Stan had an altercation with a piece of duct tape when he was but a few weeks old, and as a result tends to favour one eye. This can be a little disturbing as he weighs up his dinner - he seems to alternate between eyeing up the mouse and the fingers holding the tweezers.

He will grow - thick as your arm and loooong.

How big a pair of tweezers can I get do you think????

ihought you meant something very different to a reptile in your thread title

That would be an entirely different feeding problem - hopefully not involving tweezers

LOL!!!!

LOL!

Can I suggest the type of tongs used for cooking, barbecue ones tend to have really long handles, so you're even further away.

Barbecue tongs are almost too big - but yes I could use cooking tongs couldn't I?

I did wonder about just leaving the food in and see if he'd take it without striking.

I wonder if that would be cruel - it is natural for him to strike I guess.

Maybe try the barbecue ones when he's a lot larger.

The things we Mums end up doing for our offspring!

I'm thinking of in terms of a catapult.

when its a bit older it will be able to eat the neighbours cats

this is probably a ball python, not a burmese ste

you can just leave the food in there and they will take it sometimes, though it is better for them to strike, my friend who inherited her brothers traps the rats tail in the lid of the aquarium & he goes for it that way - also doesn;t have the use of one of his eyes (due to cap problems)

i've seen tweezers at about 12" long at college, just grab the tails with those & wave it bout a bit

although... don;t leave the rats etc on a warm radiator to heat them a little when he;s not showing much interest... if you forget about them, you'll have a lot of cleaning up to do...

God, so did I, especially with the very next thread being about Ray's crabs

I'm assuming you meant my daughter


Lol he's not that fast


I've got a cat too - I hadn't thought of that


Yes I'd like him to have as normal an experience as possible - so I will keep wriggling - though it's not as if he needs to be ready for freedom

And OMG, yes, it will be rats won't it

[quote=droogiefret;35079544]I'm assuming you meant my daughter

Woops! Sorry, only just checked back.

Your not the only one mwahaha

Barbeque tongs are the way forwards, that's what I use for my (two eyed) Royal Python.

Don't do that, if he swallows substrate with his dinner it can kill him.

I hadn't thought of that. My daughter and bf were back tonight and couldn't get him to take his second mouse. They've left it on top of a rock with him. I guess that's OK? No substrate on a rock?

If he doesn't take it straight away you're better off getting rid of it. When it takes a meal, has finished swallowing and doesn't show interest in a 2nd serving, the snake will go and hide away, finding somewhere warm to curl up and digest. It won't come out cruising until it's hungry again i.e. when the last meal has been digested/passed through and it's ready for a crap. By then the second rodent will not be fit to eat

Yep - the second mouse has been ditched now. I think I'll get some tongs - one of the problems is that you can't hold the mice in tweezeers for long without them falling out. I think the snake needs longer to weigh up the strike and loses interest.

I was thinking more along the lines of a 10' pole.

Is the mouse warm when you serve it up? And do you hold it by the tail and give it a gentle dangle, allowing it to sway a little?

(PS - it's a VIVarium for future reference )