Nasty question about guts and rats....?

Did I just read someone suggest cutting the rat in half to keep the guts from coming out? I'm not so sure about that. I also agree with the last poster about making sure the rat is fully thawed, don't leave it partially frozen.

I've had a few snakes that constricted that strongly, but they were normally voracious feeders and almost always ate. Something I found helped sometimes was to just leave the f/t rat in the enclosure when the snake was in his hide. Then he would come out and the whole thing would go down a little more calmly. Has he always been this way? Did he eat before if he mashed them to bits? I ask because I would think there its another reason he's not eating. Maybe he's all horned up ;) Really. Is there a female bci or bcc near his cage? It is that time of year. Its not as common with boas, but sometimes males will go off food and become a little aggressive, and put all their energy towards breeding. Just a thought. I would try introducing the prey when he's not around, our maybe even put the rat in a separate container, then putting the snake in. But if him not actually eating it is a new thing, and he seems healthy otherwise, I wouldn't worry to much for now, his mind probably just isn't on food, lol.

Please do not follow any of this advice about leaving the stomach partially frozen. This is a good way to kill your snake. If this continues to be an issue, you may be forced to go to pre-killed for your boa since the rat isn't "softened up" by the freezing process.

Remember, it is imperative to properly thaw your rodent, the whole rodent, and bring it up to "body temperature". Leaving a part of it cold and nearly solid can kill your snake. This will drop the body temp of the snake dramatically...kind of like if you swallowed a really big ice cube.

If they are all in the same cage try feeding that snake separately from the rest of the snakes, cause it could be a dominate aggression issue. If they are already separated then just don't thaw that rat so much. If that doesn't work just try to change its diet a bit to a few mice instead of rats, or keep the rat frozen and cut it in half so that way it will still be frozen and if it trys to make the rats gut explode it wont.

-Chaz

Dont thaw it too much. What i mean is have everything thawed except the stomach. It happened with my baby red tail. The rat pup was sqeezed so hard its stomach exploded. The difference was he still ate him. I left the stomach kinda frozen this time. Guess we both have some ferocious eaters. Btw thanks for your help on my questions.