How to feed a Vietnamese blue beauty sanke? - Video

Hey :)

Here's a video that I've made of an average weekly feeding session with The Fury. It differs from the feeding technique I put in place when she was a little baby, as feeding her in a different enclosure has not proven to be the real deal over time.

           

As you can see, I am currently feeding Furia two small mediums per week. I have three more mice to go, and have decided to go up a size after that, as there is no visible bulge in her body after swallowing both preys... Depending on how big the mediums are, I will probably skip from a weekly to a 5 days regimen.

See in my area there's not many mice suppliers to choose and pick from, for snakes are not all that famous in Spain. My local supplier is a great guy though, I am not complaining, he's passionate about reptiles and loves to chit chat about them, but as far as mice sizes go... meh. Until now, I've been working with smalls that looked like big fuzzies, so I am not confident that mediums will honor their name. We'll see!

I hope you like the video, and if there's something in particular you'd like to see feel free to let me know.

Scale up!

M.

How to feed a Vietnamese Blue Beauty snake. Snake feeding gear.

How to feed your VBB will come down to your personal preferences. Here's what I use and why:

Glass jar. As I've had some trouble getting Furia to feed on frozen/thawed mice, I had to find a way to defrost my pinkies while keeping their original scent as much as possible. After trying several methods, I discovered the one that suits me and the beast the better. A closed glass jar will keep the mice's scent, will avoid contact with water if you put it in a casserole to heat and will prevent the mice from going bad if your snake refuses to eat. Put it in the fridge and call it a day!

Thongs. I have never enjoyed the idea to hold dead mice in my hands to feed it to my snakes, so I have used feeding thongs from the start [purchased off eBay, here]. I'd also rather The Fury doesn't associate my body scent with being fed, and that's just one way to ensure that. Again, it's a personal preference, many snake owners don't bother and have never had a problem.

Feeding bowl. I only use the feeding bowl (soap holder) in rare exceptions now, usually when I am in a hurry and don't have the time to feed Furia, then I just leave the pinkies in the bowl for her to find and eat. It prevents her from ingurging bedding and suffer from impaction. I don't really think it is mandatory, as snakes surely ingurge dirt and soil with their meals in the wild, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Until here, all I use when I feed Furia in her terrarium, which is being her personal favorite lately. Check it out:

            


Additional feeding gear (optional):

Back when I started with The Fury she was quite a picky eater, and I found I had more chances to succeed at feeding her when she was fed in a different enclosure.

Feeding R.U.B. This is something I never used with my corn but always did with my Vietnamese Blue Beauty hatchling.

Why? They are said to have such a ferocious feeding response that I worked to separate feeding and handling in my VBB's mind as much as possible.

So what I did is that I put all my feeding gear at hand, take The Fury from her terrarium, put her in the R.U.B. and fed her there. When she was done and her meals were down the lower half of her body, I put her back in her terrarium and leave her be for 48h, in order to allow her to digest peacefully. 


A snake handled while digesting can get stressed and regurge its meal, so it's really better to leave them to it ;)

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M.

Feeding my Vietnamese Blue Beauty - What do I feed my snake?

There are many options when it comes to feeding:

• Smaller preys quite often (more than once a week)
• Bigger preys less often (usually every 7 days for hatchlings, yearlings and sub-adults, and every 10 to 14 days for adults)
• With / without supplements (calcium or vitamins)

If you wish to feed your snake more than once per week, just bear in mind a snake's digestive process is long and can last up to two days. Thus, it is not really recommended to feed a snake more than once every 4 days, which already seems quite a lot if you ask me. 

Also, snakes are opportunistic feeders: they do not eat because they are hungry but rather because they don't know how many time will elapse between one feed and another, so they feed whenever they have the occasion as a matter of survival. If you offered your snake a fuzzy every 4 days, it would most likely take it, but that does not mean it's hungry nor does it evidence a healthy practice. 

Of course, the feeding options listed above all give different results in growth speed and snake health. I found a very interesting experiment by Snake Bytes TV, the results of which did not exactly match my preconceived ideas. Although it was carried out with corn snakes, I am sure we can extrapolate the results. Watch out!

Feeding experiment: hypothesis

Feeding experiment: the results (starts at 02:07)

The Munson Scale mentionned in the video has been thought for average sized colubrids and is obviously not applicable to VBBs after a certain point, as a sub-adult or adult specimen will most likely weigh over 300 gr. However, until then it can be as good an orientation as any other. 

Snake Weight	Prey Weight	Prey name	Quantity of Preys	Interval
4 – 15 gr	2 – 3 gr	Pinky	1	4
16 – 23 gr	3 – 4 gr	Pinky	2	4 – 5
24 – 30 gr	5 – 7 gr	Small fuzzy	1	5 – 6
31 – 50 gr	7 – 9 gr	Fuzzy	1	5 – 6
51 – 90 gr	9 – 12 gr	Hopper	1	6 – 7
91 – 170 gr	13 – 20 gr	Weanling	1	7
171 – 300 gr	20 – 30 gr	Young adult	1	7 – 10

For those of you who are not familiar with the different mice sizes' names, here is a simple picture (not mine, but I can't find the source):

I personally don't follow the Munson Scale and just go by this rule of thumb: I go up a size when the bulge of the swallowed prey is not really visible once it has gone down half of my snake's body. This worked wonders with my corn, though it might need to be nuanced for my VBB girl. 

Because Vietnamese Beauty Snakes are so slender, it might be a good idea not to go up a size right away, but double the prey items instead for a little while and "upgrade" after that.

Aged 5 months old, I currently feed The Fury as I was told by the seller: 2 pinkies every 7 days. It has been working well so far, as you can see in November snake stats.

I hope this has been helpful.

Scale up!

M.