Snake Feeding
Snakes are able to consume live food which is bigger than they are, because their heads and jaws are designed for it. They have very specialised diets, and their digestive systems allow them to wait until the right meal turns up - two weeks or even a month. In captivity snakes still crave their favourite food, be it mice, baby chickens, frogs, worms or salamanders. But, if you arepatient, some may eat non live food such as raw fish or raw meat, particulatly if you wiggle it to make the snake think the offering is alive. Be sure to learn the feeding havits of your snake and rememebr not handle it after feeding. It needs time to difest its food.
The frequency of feeding must vary from species to species. Remember in genral, however, tthat in the period of approximately 10 days before it sloughs its skin it is unlikely to feed. At that time, the snake will be feeling somewhat uncomfortable, its eyes will become cloudu, there will be a milky appearance separating the old skin from the new, and it will not want to constrict. Indeed, it will, in all probability, go into hiding.
Remember that if you overfeed a snake you are going to have a fat one, and in consequence, its liver will become over fat, and you will run into trouble. Don’t starve your snake but do keep it reasonably slim.
When a snake kills its prey, and it will kill only when it is hungry, everything is digested: the skin, the skeleton, the liver, the intestinal contents, everything except hair, horn or hoof, all of which excreted, the hair coming out like as mat of felt which is why, wiyth a rodent-eating snae, one uses the term ‘felt’ instead of faeces.
Going up the scale, a really large snake will consume a chicken or a rabbit whole and, in the wikdm when large pythons take a Bush Buck or Impala, it will last them for approximately six months.
If you keep several snakes together, separate them at feeding time, otherwise, in their enthusiasm, mor ethan one snake may grab the same food,they will be reluctant to let go and one snake may swallow another.