Question about feeding

[brownguy]

I was at Petco the other day just to look at the stuff they had and i was looking at the bps when one of the workers inquired if i needed help. I said no and then he was telling me how cool bps were and he asked me if i wanted to hold one i said sure. and he then said that because there feed f/t mice to them it makes them docile but when you feed them live they get agressive. Would that be true? I told him that was interesting and but I was really questioning his statement. Never in any of my readings have i come across that so i am guessing its more of a misconception.

[greenmonkey51]

Complete bull, I have feed live ever since I've had mine and shes not once ever struck. Petco peoples like to spew crap like that with agressive. I've heard once the employee say that the breeder was breeding agressive snakes so thats why their BPs were nippy. I've heard from many breeders that they feed live and all there snakes are darlings.

[brownguy]

Complete bull, I have feed live ever since I've had mine and shes not once ever struck. Petco peoples like to spew crap like that with agressive. I've heard once the employee say that the breeder was breeding agressive snakes so thats why their BPs were nippy. I've heard from many breeders that they feed live and all there snakes are darlings.

Thats what i thought. thanx for clarifing!!

[frankykeno]

Agreed, complete bull! We feed live, pre-killed and frozen thawed to all our ball pythons and one big boa. Funny enough our most aggressive snake, a large female ball python, eats nothing but f/t and eats a ton of it LOL! Her being aggressive has squat to do with her prey...it has to do more likely with something in her past before we got her or just a personality quirk. We have another large female that won't take anything but live prey. She was an wild caught rescue. For all she was wild and has gone through import, a pet store, and two previous owners she is the most docile, lovely natured snake.

In other words, you just don't know what makes a snake one way or the other. The best you can do is start with a healthy snake, give them the right environment, the prey they will eat consistently, treat them gently and with respect and establish routines that they can recognize in a basic way. Most likely with that you will end up with a lovely ball python and be a happy owner.