My snakes were supposed to eat on Saturday, but the pet store was out of fuzzies on Friday and won't have any more until this coming Thursday. I bought some mice the next size up, but looking at them I feel like they're really probably too big (which is why I haven't tried using them yet). Should I go ahead and offer the bigger mice in case they aren't really too big, and the snakes could manage them? Or should I just let them wait until Thursday? It won't hurt them to go until then, will it?

Jack is the one I'm most concerned about because he lost his last meal...last feeding ( a week before this past Saturday) he was close to a shed, but I offered him a fuzzy anyway to let him choose whether or not to eat it. He ate it, however, a few days later, I found a regurged fuzzy in the tank (yuck...my first one of those!!! I didn't know it would look like a pale bratwurst with a long string hanging off of it ) At least I think it was his...it was possibly Sally's, although with Jack's shed, I would think he was the more likely one...another reason I'm going to separate Jack and Sally today...I can't tell whose things are whose!!! You were right, Merlin...there's a lot to be said for keeping snakes by themselves...Plus with Donna's recent post about one snake eating another... It will be nice not to have to have that little worry in the back of my mind.

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~Juliane~

With a regurged meal I would follow it with a smaller than normal item, not a larger one. Snakes disgest by way of enzymes and when they regurgitate they lose some of that digestive juice which reduces their capacity to digest.
And skipping a week or two between feedings won't hurt them a bit.

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!

It wont do them any harm to wait, you should wait till 10 days at least after a regurge anyway just to make sure everything inside is all settled down, if you are not sure which one did regurge, you would be best to let both Sally and Jack go 10 days until you next try a feed, you could probably offer Spectre and Ky-lin something bigger, they will just back away if to big or spit it out, it wont do them any harm to wait till the pet store has in what you want

I'll wait then...thank you for the advice

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~Juliane~

I agree with Donna, you should wait 7-10 days after a regurg before feeding, and as Merlin said offer something slightly smaller than usual for the first meal. Since you don't know for sure which snake regurgitated treat both snakes as the one who did it, to be safe.

It won't harm the snake to go longer than a week - in the wild they are opportunist feeders and eat when they get the chance. Obviously in captivity the more regular and restricted feeding leads to a healthier, longer-lived snake, but missing a week or a few days here and there won't do the snake any harm at all. Our larger snakes are only fed every two weeks, and if we have run out of food or the situation won't allow for feeding we will happily leave the snakes a few extra days - gets them exercising more

And remember a snake can be fed something up to one and a half times the size of the thickest part of its body, so that's a good rule to go by when considering larger food items.

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"If you know everything you may as well blow your brains out because the reason for existence is to learn more everyday." - Mark O'Shea, 2004