Live food...why? Honestly & with facts!

[slackerz]

when i read the first post,i thought the thread starter honestly want to hear about other people's opinion about feeding live food..but after 8 pages,its quite disgusting to see his response towards others..he try to correct everyone like he's the only one has the right opinion even some people here already gave some fact..im sorry if i offended you.

For me,feeding live has pros and cons..but i still prefer live one..feeding live means fresh with protein,vitamins and nutrient..maybe some people disagree with my statement,but as far as i do nutritional/protein/antioxidant test to the sample in the lab,its quite difficult to get good result of nutrient content from sample which frozen for quite long time.that is why we always do it on fresh sample..It will be even worst if the food refreeze so many times like you did and i think it is really selfish behavior.if you ever taste the raw meat,or raw fish,its really different between fresh and frozen..It is different not because nothing change,but a lot of thing already changed..And dont forget,the live food not always carrying bad germs like you said,but it always bring good bacteria for BP's digestive system..maybe for BP,we didnt see much different between feeding live and fresh(i can see it), but for some snake,feeding live means doesn't have much problem with digestion process.if my corn always regurgitate,one of the solution is give live feeder.

i feed my snake both pre kill and lives..and for lives one,i dont have any problem after so many years..the worst one only scratch..I believe anyone here who feed them live know the risk and know how to overcome it..and I DID NOT FEED THEM RABBIT or inappropriate size of food..

[Tzeentch]

I feed live because F/T is "boring"

I have my tweezers ready to prevent bites.

[Jay_Bunny]

I feed live and f/t to my snakes. I've been keeping snakes now for 5 years. I keep over 30 snakes right now and have plans to expand my collection.

Firstly, I feed the majority of my snakes f/t. This is out of convienence only. I would much prefer to feed live, but if I were to feed live I would want to breed my own (because the sources of live rodents around are not that great...parasites...ill rodents...malnourished) and I simply do not have the room to do so. Many of my snakes have no problem switching from live to f/t from one feeding to the next. They simply do not care. However, I do have a few snakes that simply refuse f/t. They will starve themselves for months until they get a live prey item. Of course, I have no problem feeding live, so this is not a problem for me.

When I feed live, I am very careful with each feeding. I supervise each and every live feeding, tongs in hand, ready to intervene should the snake strike wrong. If the snake does not strike within a few minutes, I pull the rodent and leave the snake for the next feeding day.

In my 5 years of keeping snakes I have only one snake that has ever become injured. It was a very small bite wound on my snow corn snake from a live mouse. Within a few sheds you wouldn't even know she'd ever been bitten and it certainly has not scared her into not eating. She's an eating machine and will take down any prey item you offer, live or dead.

Also, I NEVER stun a rodent. I find this to be a cruel practice. It can also be dangerous to your snake. If you stun a prey item and it ends up coming to while in a tub with your snake, the prey item will more than likely be very frightened and more aggressive. You would be too if someone knocked you senseless. I used to stun mice for my snakes when they were babies. That was no problem. The first time I ever tried to stun a rat, I almost cried. The poor thing went into seizures. I will never again stun an animal. Either kill it and offer it p/k, buy f/t, or feed live. There is NO reason you should have to stun a prey item.

[pigfat]

I feed live.
1.) I cant get mine to take f/t.
2.) Its easier for me to go by the store and buy mice than having to thaw out frozen rats, warm them up, and dangle them around for my snakes to eat them.
3.) You hear it with nutritionists all the time that frozen foods loose a lot of their nutrients, its probably the same with mice right?


I've been stabbed in the roof of my mouth so many times from chips and what not, but it doesnt scare me away from eating them lol. I also closely supervise feeding time with pliars in hand ready to help. I wait untill the snake is completely done strangling and begins to eat before I put the lid back on.

[Redneck_Crow]

Sometimes if my pythons are on a self-imposed fast they will take live when they won't take f/t.

As an example-- I have a 1500gm pastel yb. I am not breeding Marilyn this season because she is a late '10 and even though she is large enough to breed and doing all of the big-girl things like fasting and bowl wrapping I do not want to breed her this young. Probably next year.

I tried for the last couple of weeks to get her to eat f//t, which she usually will. I have a very happy possum because she has been refusing. Today she refused a third time. I offered her a live rat and she took it within seconds.

Now, it wouldn't kill Marilyn not to eat for another month or so, but I want her to eat. I want her to be a good size and weight for next fall when I do allow her to breed. So she's getting live until she accepts f/t. I'm not worried about her getting bitten by a rat either. Marilyn is quite the efficient ratter. They seldom get out more than one squeal when she nabs them.

[nikitajane25]

Ok I'm comin in at the butt end of this snake. I only read the first and last page of the thread and haven't seen this argument at all. It is their nature. In the wild snakes hunt and kill and yes, they can get hurt in the process, but they still go on. In my opinion, when keeping any exotic animal, it is the owners responsibility to make their habitat as close to natural as possible, including their feed. Some people might say "well that's why animals bite and attack" and blah blah blah. But its their nature! Why do you like snakes? For me its because they're facinating animals by nature, so why try to ruin that!? I am not opposed to frozen thawed if my snakes would take it I would get it. Most concern is the rat/mouse biting. Like I said it hapens in the wild and they do ok. But we can take em to a vet if a bite or scratch is too serious. If your snake takes f/t more power t you that's great I'm not opposed to that. But if your slithery friend prefers a like rat then givethem that. Its the thrill of thehunt!! Let nature take its course, let them do what comes naturally to them.

[Jay_Bunny]

On another note on the whole "ball python is domesticated and not wild anymore, therefore we should feed it f/t" argument.....

My dog is technically domesticated. When I begin breeding feeder animals (mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, etc) I intend on putting him on a whole prey diet and yes, I will give him the opportunity to take down live prey if he has a high prey drive. My cats will be fed the same way and they are domesticated.

My ferrets already eat live prey. Twitch, my smallest, is my best hunter. Now, because of the size of a ferret, you would not allow them to take down a rat. It's nearly half their size. But mice are fair game and a favorite of my ferrets. They are a domesticated species, however even they get live food.

If done responsibly, live can be no more dangerous than feeding f/t. One could argue that nutrient levels can be affected by the freezing process. Some argue that taurine deteriorates after a while. F/T that you buy could have been spoiled and simply re-frozen and you end up feeding a spoiled prey item. (I've bought one of those. Thawed it out and it smelled like it had been decomposing for quite a while before it was re-frozen) I do not ever recommend re-freezing something that has been completely thawed out. If it is not completely thawed then re-freezing is okay, but never when its already thawed. I don't do that with my ferrets and I don't do that with my snakes. Whole prey is generally okay to be left out for 12 hours or so without spoilage. Sometimes I will pull my rats to thaw during the day while I'm working and feed when I get home. I never have a problem, but once I know it is fully thawed, I never leave it for more than a few hours before pulling it out of a tub and discarding it.

[Crazy4Herps]

On another note on the whole "ball python is domesticated and not wild anymore, therefore we should feed it f/t" argument.....

My dog is technically domesticated. When I begin breeding feeder animals (mice, rats, gerbils, hamsters, guinea pigs, rabbits, etc) I intend on putting him on a whole prey diet and yes, I will give him the opportunity to take down live prey if he has a high prey drive. My cats will be fed the same way and they are domesticated.

My ferrets already eat live prey. Twitch, my smallest, is my best hunter. Now, because of the size of a ferret, you would not allow them to take down a rat. It's nearly half their size. But mice are fair game and a favorite of my ferrets. They are a domesticated species, however even they get live food.

If done responsibly, live can be no more dangerous than feeding f/t. One could argue that nutrient levels can be affected by the freezing process. Some argue that taurine deteriorates after a while. F/T that you buy could have been spoiled and simply re-frozen and you end up feeding a spoiled prey item. (I've bought one of those. Thawed it out and it smelled like it had been decomposing for quite a while before it was re-frozen) I do not ever recommend re-freezing something that has been completely thawed out. If it is not completely thawed then re-freezing is okay, but never when its already thawed. I don't do that with my ferrets and I don't do that with my snakes. Whole prey is generally okay to be left out for 12 hours or so without spoilage. Sometimes I will pull my rats to thaw during the day while I'm working and feed when I get home. I never have a problem, but once I know it is fully thawed, I never leave it for more than a few hours before pulling it out of a tub and discarding it.

You make an excellent point, but I just wanted to point out that ball pythons are not domesticated.

[sho220]

The whole "f/t vs live" argument is the most over-analyzed bp subject ever...feed them what they'll eat and what is convenient for you...

[rabernet]

ANYway...the main thing i had wanted to comment on was rabernet, who said "I feed live to all my ball pythons except my albino, and that's only because I don't like seeing any blemishes on him, like scratches from a kicking rodent. It doesn't hurt them, their scales are designed and do protect them."

I'll just be blunt here and ask why you think it's okay that your other snakes are allowed blemishes, or scratches, or worse...but your favorite isn't. That is like admitting that yes, they DO get hurt from live food...but you have one that is more worthy of not getting hurt.
Just weird.

I missed this earlier, but I'll just be blunt here and say that the snakes with melanin do NOT have blemishes, because the melanin doesn't show them. You're making an assumption that the albino is my favorite animal in my collection, and he's not.

Blemishes are not injuries. I get scratched all the time in my daily life and things that I do, but I do not consider minor scratches to be injuries, nor life threatening. In fact, I barely notice them - they are simply cosmetic. I am feeding f/t to that particular snake for cosmetic reasons only - not for safety, or because he's a favored snake in any way.

You chose to pick one part of my post out, without acknowledging the extremely low risk of injury in my collection from feeding live. Using my own, real life experiences, with over 15K live feedings, I have not ONCE had any rodent maim or scar a single snake in my collection.

Feed F/T if that's what you prefer, but do NOT sit in judgement of those who prefer feeding live prey to their collections, for whatever their reason may be. In fact, no one owes you any explanation as to why they came to the choice that they cam to.

Your horse appears to be pretty high and your sword rather mighty.