What do small snakes eat? Snake - description, characteristics, structure. Where do they live, what do they eat, how do snakes reproduce in nature? Types and names of snakes with photos and descriptions. Poisonous and non-poisonous snakes: a list. Who eats snakes from animals

09.03.2020

Snakes as pets are easier to feed than other reptiles. While an anaconda may need a fairly large deer and a python a plump pig every few weeks, your snake has a more modest appetite. In most cases, she needs only a few rats or mice (rabbits for large specimens).

However, for each specific species of snake, it is necessary to know in advance the diet it needs. For example, some bog snakes only eat lobsters, while others only eat snails or fish, which must be fed several times a week. Some snakes feed on insects and require three meals per week.

The snake menu. In nature, snakes often travel long distances in search of prey. Depending on the variety, these can be insects, bird eggs, frogs, small or large mammals. In captivity, the snake's primary diet will consist of young frozen or live mice. Select the size of mice based on the size of the snake's head so that it does not stress the snake when it swallows food.

Should snakes be given live prey? Although many snake lovers believe that it is better to feed the snake with live food, nevertheless, the bite of a live rodent, if not immediately swallowed or improperly taken by the snake, can cause injury or even death to the reptile. Therefore, it is better not to give the snake live prey.

How much should a snake be fed? One feeding per week is usually sufficient. How much food to give on this feeding depends on the size of your snake. One adult snake may need two small mice a week, another one large mouse or rat a week, a third a two-kilogram rabbit every two to three weeks, and a fourth a dozen earthworms a week. If you give the snake too much food, it will become fat.

Like all reptiles, a snake's body temperature and metabolism are dependent on the temperature around it. Changes in the environment, especially in temperature and lighting, are directly related to changes in appetite. Snakes caught in the wild can be affected by the changing seasons for several years after they are caught.

How do you know if a snake is hungry? Snakes let you know when they want to eat. They begin to fuss, click their tongues often and loudly.

What is the best way to feed a snake? Lower the food into the terrarium with tongs. Remember that even docile snakes can misbehave in the hands of the owner if they smell the food. Snakes can also be aggressive when moving around them, so use caution when changing water and other manipulations in the terrarium.

If you have several snakes, feed them separately in separate tanks to eliminate the possibility of a fight between them. The snake has curved teeth that prevent them from releasing prey, so a larger snake may try to swallow a smaller one.

Should you give the snake water? Keep a small container of fresh water in the terrarium. Tree snakes should be sprayed daily with a spray bottle.

Why doesn't the snake want to eat? Wild-caught snakes that are not yet accustomed to life in captivity or new food are at high risk of developing anorexia. Some snakes that have changed owners or moved to a new terrarium may also refuse food for a while.

The snake's appetite also depends on molting. At this time, they become vulnerable and irritable, often refuse to eat. After molting, appetite returns. A female snake that is about to lay eggs, as well as a male (during the breeding season), can also temporarily refuse food. In other cases, it is not typical for a snake to refuse food for more than one to two months.

It is very important to correctly determine what caused and whether this forced hunger strike harms the health of the reptile. First, the snake should be weighed regularly. If her spine becomes visible, she is probably too thin. Snakes that refuse food are at risk of dehydration. This is easy to determine by slightly squeezing the skin: dehydrated skin will wrinkle and smooth out to a normal state very slowly. In this case, urgent veterinary assistance is required.

Secondly, you should immediately check the temperature and lighting in the terrarium. For snakes living in temperate climates, in the autumn, as the intensity of sunlight decreases, their appetite also decreases. In this case, provide the snake with optimal lighting during the daytime. For tropical snakes, 12 noon and 12 noon are recommended. For snakes of the temperate zone (North America or Europe) - 10 pm and 2 pm in winter and 2 pm and 10 am in summer.

If the snake is healthy, you can reduce your food intake during the cooler months.

If the snake is healthy and all right, but it is still refusing food, try the following. Tease the snake: take food with tongs and twist it in front of the reptile's nose, you can even touch it. This sometimes prompts the snake to grab the prey and swallow it. Give the snake some kind of shelter so that it can eat in peace. Put food in this shelter so that the snake can "find" prey. Try to diversify the menu, for example, instead of a mouse, offer chicken or hamster reptiles.

Force-feeding is used as a last resort and only by an experienced specialist.

The snake is not the most common pet, so before you get one, you need to study all sorts of information. Reptiles are quite unpretentious, but when buying, consult the seller about their diet. Some species have their own food preferences.

How to feed a snake at home?

Snakes swallow prey whole, it can be toads, insects, lizards, small rodents, birds. They also give earthworms, pieces of fish, chicken and quail eggs, meat. Captive-bred pets can be gradually taught to feed on pieces of lean beef, chicken, snails without a shell.

It is not recommended to give live rodents, as they can fight and bite, injuring the snake. Before this, the rodent is blocked by the spine, holding the torso and sharply pulling the tail, and the largest teeth are cut down. However, it is best to give frozen prey, having previously thawed it in the air. Food should be dry, as snakes can burp wet animals. Domestic snakes also need moisture: you need to spray the terrarium and be sure to put a drinking bowl with water at room temperature in it, change the drinker every day.

How often to feed the snakes?

During the molting period, reptiles may completely refuse food, the snake may well go without it for several weeks. In general, juveniles are fed once every 3-4 days, adults once every 7-10 days. Young snakes will actively feed after the first molt. It has been noticed that when living conditions or the owner change, snakes can go on long hunger strikes.

Interestingly, over time, domestic snakes even send signals to their owners, hinting that they are hungry. Reptiles behave restlessly, make clicking sounds, glance towards the feeder.

How to feed the snakes?

It is advisable to feed the reptiles one at a time, as they can easily fight each other. Feed is lowered into the terrarium with tweezers or tweezers; this should not be done with your hands, because, smelling food, reptiles can behave aggressively.

If several snakes live in the same space, a fight will begin for food, as a result, strong individuals will be full, and weak ones will be left without lunch. The choice is small: either put animals away for feeding, or give food first to the most aggressive snakes, and then to the rest. Feeding dead animals does not greatly excite the hunting instincts, so the snakes behave calmer and do not rush at each other.

What do snakes eat?

All snakes are predators and therefore never eat plant foods.Since snakes swallow their prey whole, they have very caustic digestive juices.

The jaws of the snake have an unusual structure. They are very weakly connected to other bones of the skull. Tiny teeth grow along the edge of the jaws, and some snakes also grow two additional rows of teeth in the palate. All these teeth are connected to bones, which are set in motion by special muscles.

On the example of a rattlesnake.

Having captured the prey, the snake holds it with the teeth of the lower jaw, and the upper one pushes it into the mouth opening. When the food has already passed halfway into the mouth, the lower jaw also begins to help the upper jaw move the food deeper into the esophagus.

Due to the special structure of the jaw, the snake can swallow large animals. So, for example, pythons sometimes swallow leopards and deer! But, of course, small individuals eat small animals. Most snakes still feed on medium-sized living creatures: grasshoppers, frogs, fish, mice, rats and birds. Some tiny blind snakes only eat termites. And there are also snakes that prey on their own kind.

As for food, these reptiles are very picky. So, the green snake eats spiders, fish, birds, caterpillars, but will not touch lizards and mice, and the water snake is not indifferent to fish and frogs, but will ignore insects and mice.

Anacondas eat a variety of foods.

These amazing reptiles have always caused both delight and fear in humans. It is simply impossible to be indifferent to snakes! About how they eat, breed, where they live and how they are dangerous to people, school textbooks on zoology tell. But there are many interesting facts related to snakes that are not known to everyone. In our article you will find a selection of the most fascinating information about these representatives of the animal kingdom.

snake physiology

What do you know about snakes other than that, unlike most animals, they don't have legs? Let's look at how these creatures work and get acquainted with some interesting facts.

Snakes have a huge number of ribs - up to 250 pairs. The girdle of the upper limbs is absent, but the remains of the pelvis in some species are preserved, although not functional. Pythons even have tiny vestigial remains of legs. There are no snakes with front or hind legs.

Snake teeth grow throughout their lives.
Shedding also occurs throughout life.
The internal organs are not located compactly, as in humans, but in a row one after another. The left lung is larger in all snakes, and in many species the right lung is completely absent.
When swallowing prey, the heart can be significantly displaced.
All snakes have eyelids that are always closed. They are transparent films that do not interfere with vision. However, the eyesight of snakes is not very good. But on the other hand, they are able to distinguish between warm objects, like a thermal imager.

We add that the opinions of scientists regarding the hearing of reptiles vary greatly. It is generally accepted that snakes are practically deaf, but some studies refute this version.

Giants and babies

The largest living snake is the reticulated python. Not far behind him is a green anaconda. Representatives of these species have a mass of under a centner and a length of about ten meters.

The largest of all snakes living in the territory of the former USSR is the gyurza. The maximum length of representatives of this species is 2 m.

Let's take a look at some more interesting facts.

Giant snakes include two more types of pythons: light brindle and dark brindle.
The female dark tiger python named Baby, who grew up in one of the US zoos, is the heaviest living one. This beauty weighs 183 kg (on average, representatives of the species have a weight of 75 kg).
The light tiger python reaches a length of six meters, but does not pose a danger to any animal larger than a cat.
The top five includes the king cobra.

The smallest is the Barbados narrow-mouthed snake. It does not even grow to ten cm. Among the poisonous representatives of the class, one can mention the pygmy viper, which can grow up to a maximum of thirty centimeters.

superkillers

When answering the question about the most dangerous reptile, many will mention the black mamba, because it is she who is considered the most poisonous snake. An interesting fact: the color of this creature is not black, but grayish or brownish. There are many superstitions associated with this snake. Residents of the regions in which she lives, even her name is never pronounced out loud, fearing that the insidious snake will hear and come to visit. The black mamba is also the fastest, because it can move at a speed of 20 km / h.

But the terrible mamba has an even more dangerous competitor - the taipan. It lives in Australia, has an extremely aggressive behavior and an impressive length of several meters. Taipan venom paralyzes the heart muscle, and acts instantly. When you meet him, just run.

The Philippine cobra is a professional sniper. She kills by spitting venom. Even a distance of 3 meters is not safe. But, like other cobras, the Philippine snake rarely attacks first. The traveler should carefully look under his feet so as not to step on it.

The ribbon krait lives in India, where it is called the shy snake. Kraits are not aggressive unless their offspring are touched. But the poison of one snake is enough to send a dozen people to the next world.

The amount of poison contained in the glands of one king cobra will be enough to deal with twenty-three adults. There may simply not be time to administer an antidote. The bite of a king cobra is deadly even for an elephant. Usually, a cobra kills because of the danger that threatens its cubs. Yes, yes, one of the most dangerous reptiles on the planet is a caring mother.

Among non-venomous snakes, there are also born killers. Until recently, pythons were considered harmless to humans, but in recent years, several cases of python attacks on people have been recorded in Southeast Asia. Scientists believe that a python that does not know how to chew and swallows food whole is too tough for a person, as they say (the pelvic bones of the victim will not fit in the mouth of a predator). But people of small build should not trust pythons.

pseudosnake

Let's pay attention to one funny creature, which is also very similar to a snake, but it is not at all. In fact, this is a yellow-bellied lizard. In the process of evolution, the limbs were lost as unnecessary.

Pay attention to the structure of the head. The yellow-bellied eye has movable leathery eyelids. Predators take this lizard for a snake and do not touch it.

There is also an antipode of the yellow-bellied skink, which is called a snake with legs. But here the sensation did not work out, the skink is not a snake, it is also a lizard.

What's on the snake's menu?

Let's look at some unusual facts about snake nutrition.

All snakes are predators.
Most of them do not know how to chew and use their teeth only for grasping and tearing food apart.
The digestion process can take up to several weeks. For example, a python eats only twice a month (this should be remembered by those who decide to get an exotic pet).

Some snakes are not able to feel full, so they can die from overeating.

Hell and heaven for those who are afraid of snakes

Australia and New Zealand… Fabulous countries on the edge of the earth. When planning a trip to those distant places, do not forget about snakes. Australia is home to 21 of the 25 most venomous snake species. But in neighboring New Zealand there are no snakes at all! The exception is two types of aquatic reptiles, which are not dangerous in the water.

Or maybe you, on the contrary, love these reptiles and want to watch them in their natural environment? Or do you want to tell interesting facts about snakes to children? Well, there are also non-dangerous reptiles in Australia. But the tour must be accompanied by an experienced guide.

As a pet

Anyone who plans to equip a terrarium at home needs to familiarize themselves with the most interesting facts in advance. Snakes have a number of features, their maintenance is simple, but a novice breeder needs to learn a lot.

Study the material on the temperature and drinking conditions, read the rules of feeding. Don't skimp on snake house equipment. Be sure to find out in advance if there is a veterinarian in your locality who works with reptiles. With proper home improvement and compliance with all necessary standards, a snake can live in captivity even longer than in nature. This beautiful creature can become not only a delight for the eyes, but also a true friend. Of course, if the owner is caring, kind and sincerely loves snakes.