feeding issue?

[Mada]

ok so my spider girl has been eating small stunned rats. (she likes to attack right as they start to come to). but if i leave her tub open she will ignore the rat and try to come out so i typically have been closing her up and checking every few min while sitting near by. i checked yesterday and she had wrapped it but when i touched the tub she unwrapped and let go of it. so i closed her up noting that the rat was still breathing and hopeing she wouldn't shy away from it totally. when i checked again she was trying to eat it but i noticed it was still breathing so i opened the cage up and put part of her lower 1/2 around the rat and she constricted up on it.

my question is was i wrong to take this last step? my fear was that she would have the rat live in her and even if its just a spasm it could damage her mouth or throat.

[SKO]

First, why would you stun a rat to feed it to a snake?? That's both inhumane and unnecessary. A stunned rat can also "come to" and get very aggressive and injure your snake. Either pre kill it, feed it live, or feed frozen/thawed. You were wrong for taking every step.

[Mada]

thank you for the reply, nice to see i can get a negative comment with insults, i guess in your mind feeding an animal in your care is the first thing you can do wrong. as that was step one. i get it might not be humane but she refuses frozen thawed and pre-killed. and last time i feed her an un-stunned rat well i don't like having to put medicine on a snake because a rat kicked its scale off with its clawed foot that to me is undue harm to my snake.

your inability to come off in any way as helpful though has really up set me and made my question if this is just a forum for people to flame those who ask questions so that people like you can get an ego boost. in fact in the 4 people i know who keep snakes personally 3 others have had this happened and 2 of them said i did the right thing i was just posting it on here for further commentary not criticism.

in closing thank you for the reply but honestly your approach and attitude has put me off of ever caring what you have to say.

[cristacake]

Okay maybe you didn't like SKO's tone, but that doesn't mean his reply was invalid. I know it's hard to hear criticisms concerning animal husbandry but he does have a point. I'll elucidate further, because yeah... a more informative response might have been more helpful.

I don't have experience regarding your particular issue as my BP takes f/t with no issues, but from what I've read on here from the many experienced keepers who own dozens to hundreds of snakes, I would suggest trying pre-killed and holding the rodent by the scruff (with tongs, of course) rather than dangling it by the tail. This makes a more realistically lively-looking prey item. I find that my BP seems to get the most excited when I let my hand shake a little, causing the feeder to appear as though it's trembling. I'm not sure which technique you use, but anything is worth a shot. The great thing about BPs is that they can skip a meal with no detriment to their health.

To answer your question: I think as long as your BP managed to eat the feeder after your intervention, it should be fine. It's good that you thought to prevent harm from the inside. It's possible that your snake assessed the situation and deemed that it didn't need to waste the energy to constrict because the feeder was already on its way to death. Not to rub the point in too much, but this wouldn't happen with non-stunned.

And I know you already know this logically, but I'd like you to think about the practice of stunning. Knocking the mouse out and then letting it "come to" is very traumatic to the rodent. If I were to be fed to a giant snake, I would much rather be killed painlessly and quickly before being put in with it, as opposed to getting bludgeoned, dropped in the cage, and being too disoriented and in pain to do anything. To top it off, as soon as your head clears and you can lie on the ground regaining your senses, you still have to go through the trauma of seeing the snake coming at you and starting to eat you. In this case, the rodent didn't even get the luxury of being constricted and quickly dying of a heart attack.

You still have to supervise the feeding anyway and this time you had to step in and correct something with the stunned feeder, so I don't know if the practice of stunning is really much better for you or your BP.

[SKO]

Sorry for my "harsh tone" but when I read that someone is bashing rats to stun them and offering it to their snakes, that's a little irritating. I've been on this forum for only a year and a half and have read countless threads about people asking for help to convert their snakes to f/t and have done so successfully with the help of very experienced forum members. It might take time and serious effort, but it's up to you to figure out your snake. So, to me, reading what you wrote makes me think you either didn't ask for help with that or didn't try hard enough. Either way, again, no way is it necessary to be doing what you are doing. And if it wasn't going to be me to put it harshly or bluntly and get you a little upset, it would have been someone else.

[Mada]

I've tried the holding pre-killed by the scruff for almost an hour. didn't work. i don't like harming the rats in all honesty i consider some of them pets and they are completely off of my feeder list. i however really cant stand some one who just flames some one online with out giving any tips or help whats so ever but to say that the person is wrong, there are a lot of new to snakes people who use these forums and such comments while it might come from a good place are wholly unneeded.

i always try to give her something pre-killed first. I've even tried letting a pre-killed lay in her tub over night as some have suggested. I've tried dragging the pre-killed around her tub and letting her follow the scent trail, nada. she in the 3 months we have had her has never once eaten pre-killed. and while she will eat live if offered i just really don't want her getting any more unneeded injuries. a small wound can get infected, many small wounds over the course of an animals life will shorten its life span.

how ever if you have any tips on how to do this other then what has been stated i am open to try something else. as stated i don't take any enjoyment out of stunning a rat, it is emotionally draining to be honest.

[Slim]

Without getting into the ins and outs of feeding stunned prey, I will say it sounds like you may have a shy eater. Given that, going forward I'd let the snake do what it does best once the rat's been introduced into the tub. Supervision is recommended, intervention can throw a shy eater off stride.

Bottom line, your snake did finally eat, so what you did wasn't the end of world.

Please feel free to continue the previous debate. I would like to mention however, while some practices may be standard, nothing is really one size fits all. Not all keepers do things the same way, and that doesn't make it a crime....may not be how YOU would do it, but doesn't make it a crime.

[Mada]

through help of reading post on here and with tips from others who have snakes i have gotten 8 of my 13 snakes to take frozen thawed on almost a weekly basis. i have 3 that wont but will take pre-killed rats and one that takes only mice. Charlotte is the only one who refuses pre-killed. I'm hopping to get all of them over to frozen thawed as i do consider that a more humane process (not the freezing alive method but the co2 method). But until she is willing to eat something that is f/t or pre-killed and is only willing to eat alive tell me what i should do to ensure she isnt getting injured by the rats. I've had others that only ate live for a while and none of them was ever injured. i have only had my snakes for 6 months this months so i am not an expert.

i want help but yeah when some is only giving me the "You were wrong for taking every step." comment yeah made me want to freaking quit this forum all together you might be coming from the right place with it but the harshness of it when you don't know me or everything I've done other then the small post you based it on was a major over step to me.

[SKO]

Have you tried feeding live? Not stunned? If it strikes when a rat comes to, then technically it is eating live. Maybe it doesn't feel secure eating in the tub. What is your set up like?

[SKO]

i want help but yeah when some is only giving me the "You were wrong for taking every step." comment yeah made me want to freaking quit this forum all together you might be coming from the right place with it but the harshness of it when you don't know me or everything I've done other then the small post you based it on was a major over step to me.

OK, you're right so I apologize, but like I said reading that made me cringe. Maybe I should have put my phone down for two seconds before I replied. So let's move on and figure this out.