Live food problem

[cloudx3]

My Bp does not accept prekilled mice,this wasnt a problem before because they where pinkies or little fuzzies. but now i need them a little bigger and i afraid of the mice bitting my snake. i want to know a good way to get around this, ive been told of knocking out the mouse by wacking it against the tank but by knocking it out i run the risk of killing it or even it not moving wont my snake think its dead??

[PrincessErica]

Did you try wiggling the pre-killed mouse by the tail (with tongs!) to make it think it was more alive?

[cloudx3]

yes i tried wiggling it and even tried draging it by the tailas if it were moving but no luck. she just doesnt even pay mind to it. when its alive she attacks and eats fine.

[frankykeno]

We have fed our balls live, frozen thawed and pre-killed at some point or other. I have to say that for our snakes live is working out just fine. We have a few that will refuse to eat anything other than live.

If your snake is handling live fine and you are feeding a prey size that is appropriate and easily handled by the snake, if you are monitoring the live feeds and not allowing a live prey to remain with the snake for long periods of time, then I don't see the problem. There is no hard and fast rule that snakes MUST eat f/t or p/k.

Because we chose to feed live we do feed a prey size that some might consider slightly small, however, we would rather feed two smaller prey items that the snake could handle than one huge prey item it might have more problems taking down efficiently. In other words, even though Brannagh could easily swallow a quite large rat at her weight of 2,000 grams we don't toss one of those in live, we go with a smaller size live rat and just offer her two if she needs it (one at a time of course).

Hope this helps. It's just how Mike and I have decided to care for our snakes, not the be all and end all of snake husbandry. We just try to go with what we feel confident to feed and what the snakes will take consistently and well.

If you want to go to f/t that's fine too, there's a ton of threads on the forum about little tricks to get a stubborn one to switch over, though to be honest some just never do, and others switch easy as anything.


~~Jo~~

[DylanG]

I had this problem as well. I got some large flower pots and cut holes in the top. Moe comes out and sits on the top of the pot, and is higher then the mouse. The mouse can't reach him at all. When he is ready he strikes. 99% of the time from higher ground Moe hits the head and takes them down fast. Thats what works for me

[Topher]

I wish my snake could hit the head 99% of the time. Lately he's been grabbing the butt, the feet, once by the tail. I don't know, I guess he's just got lousy aim. Unfortunatley he won't eat anything but live either, but as long as he can't aim worth nothing, he'll only be getting mice. Twice they've grabbed hold of him, but no damage luckily.