Retic's First Bunny

Retic took his first medium bunny here tonight. He of course made things very difficult from the start by constricting it from up in his branches. 6ft+ of a retic constricting a bunny and his branches in mid air is a sight to see. Coils wrapped around bunny and then completely randomly also wrapped around a branch or two. Unfortunately i didnt get any pictures of that.

Anyways took him about 45 minutes overall. He started on the head but hadnt anticipated the ears / shoulders and gave up that approach and tried feet first. That also didnt work out but went back to the head and perservered. Once he got passed the ears / shoulders it only took 10-15 minutes to wolf the rest down. Was interesting to hear bones break while he was constricting aswell as when the bunny was inside his stomach. Seems he has a bit of an irritation on his nose as well. Spent the guts of 3 nights completely destroying his viv and burrowing all over the place. Needs a clean out but will need to let him digest a good few days.

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Thanks for looking

Awesome Mark, totally forgot to give you some bunnies when you were down!
Bet he's quicker polishing one off next time

Great photo's Mark, I wouldn't like to be you cleaning up when the remains of that come out the other end it's bad enough cleaning up boa mess after a jumbo rat.

No worries Lisa i had forgot to ask tbh. Give us a loan of your giant rabbit?

Yea Jony in a non weird way will be interesting to see how different the waste is. Probably much more pelt waste because of the extra fur. Way more bones too.

Interesting series of shots Mark. I do not envy you at all after that meal has been digested. I suppose it will look like a few Rottweilers got in and used the viv as a toilet

So how does it work for feeding rabbits, I mean are they defrost, fresh killed etc...and with a snake his size and a meal like that, how long would you expect it to be between it and the next one (SORRY for all the questions Mark).

HOLY **** !!!!! Wow thats cool!!!

you guys are not making it easy for us who dont have the space or the requirements for retics...evrytime i see one of these threads makes me want one!!

No problems Tan, glad to answer.

Being honest seeing as this is his first i can only go by what iv been told by others who are more experienced. Iv been told i can expect him to go straight into a shed after this. I like to keep my feeding schedules sporadic and random as i believe it to be more natural. Maybe feed two / three times in quick succession then give a two weeks of a break maybe sometimes more.

Retics digest much faster than any other snake iv had before so i would say he would happily take one after his next shed or as soon as it is digest. Ill probably leave it 14-20 days though before offering more food. I might go up a size again or slightly bigger as he seemed to take this one with no bother.

Im sure Lisa has some experience with Rabbit fed fecal matter maybe she can give us a break down haha.

Well with more and more dwarf locales coming about and them becoming more cost friendly Husdy, you should look into getting them if your really interested. Their intelligence compared to other snakes is on another level though and really requires you to think as you work with them.

Thank you for the reply Mark.

Have you found with a sporadic feeding routine, the snake is less predictable at all or it's behavior is any different to that of one who is fed like clock work?

As you guys are sooo interested...

First this...

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Then this!

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Note the length of that thing...and that's not a particularly big one. There is definitely more to come. Sometimes there will be several of these in the viv, and a mountain of urates against the wall

EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW
I'm totally put off and I thought the corn snake was bad

first of all congrates mark on the first bunny cracker lookin retic and good pics but do i smell the start of an interesting thread here some one should start a poo thread with pics lets see the mess thats left

Now that's interesting Lisa, thanks for the pics. Do they pass it in one go or over a period of time after a big feed?

Haha! Depends Tan - sometimes there will be a single giant dog poo and that does them, sometimes there are several. Sometimes you will change the paper and they go again

They ALWAYS leave some over for when they are shedding though...!

one of the Boas left me a foot long turd that was as thick as a brush shaft the other week lol

It can be shocking at times. I need the wheelbarrow and shovel in here a lot of the time to be honest!

HAHA I won't moan about any of the kings movements ever again after this thread

i think the worst one was the 9 foot burm when she did 2 walls, the floor, myelf, my friend, my bed, 3 or 4 other cages, her own box that she was in while her cage was being altered.......... all with only maybe 2 or 3 litres of greenish urine....

OMG wtf again, I'll never moan about any of mine :)

naja-naja wrote:i think the worst one was the 9 foot burm when she did 2 walls, the floor, myelf, my friend, my bed, 3 or 4 other cages, her own box that she was in while her cage was being altered.......... all with only maybe 2 or 3 litres of greenish urine....

Good God! (a) what on earth had you feed it and (b) what did you do to it to cause it to 'squirt' everywhere?! lol

Ted that sounds rank.......I'm beginning to think Link is O.K lol

i hadnt fed it yet!! it was only the day i had got it- maybe the day after haha.

Jebus, what was the previous owner feeding it. I've honestly never seen a single snake do that or spew out anything that colour from the back end!

must have been discolored from travelling? it did spend 4 hours in transit like and a few more in a box waiting on its cage. cooler temps?
shed grand now, 9 months later so it didnt do her any harm haha.

What a 'different' thread this is turning into LOL!

Super Retic Mark and good luck with the next viv clean-out!

Greenish 'urine' is an indication that the snake wasn't fed for a period, so bile has been passed - hence the colour and why there were no solids. This happens if a snake is fasted for a period but continues to drink as normal.