Quick feeding ?..

[geckochick]

I feed my corns in a separate container. I noticed that some of you feed in your enclosures. Is it OK for them to ingest aspen chips? Is it different for balls? Should I feed my balls in thier tub?

[rabernet]

When I used aspen, I always fed in their enclosures. A few stray pieces of aspen were quickly dispensed of by the powerful stomach acids that break down bone, teeth and hair of the prey.

[Gooseman]

When I used aspen, I always fed in their enclosures. A few stray pieces of aspen were quickly dispensed of by the powerful stomach acids that break down bone, teeth and hair of the prey.

Just make sure it's prey with a side of aspen rather than aspen with a side of prey! lol

[bearhart]

I feed in a seperate tub. I pop him in there and then throw in the mouse about a minute later. Once he's done swallowing and starts looking for a way out of the tub I very carefully reach in and grab him and put him back into his cage right away. After that I leave him alone for 48 hours. Sometimes if I want to work on his cage I'll leave him covered in the feeding tub for a while.

[bearhart]

Oh yea - I'm feeding tonight. This time I'm pre-scenting the tub a bit to see if that let's him know what's going on. Currently he eats quickly but doesn't really get ready until he's seen the mouse scurrying around. I'd prefer if he was already keyed up so there's less chance of an accident.

[bearhart]

... another good feed down!

So, the results of me pre-scenting were good.

In the past he was always screwing around in the tub after I put him in - crawling around, looking up the walls, etc. Once I put the mouse in there and he saw it things went well but he was always in a poor position tactically. Often times the mouse would actually run up to him and over his body a couple of times while he was getting ready.

This time, however, I put the mouse in the tub for about 20 minutes and then scooped him and his bedding back up into his temporary container. This time, when I put Snakey in there was no messing about. He kept his head down and remained alert looking towards the center of the container. I dumped the mouse on the opposite corner and all Snakey had to do to get ready was spring up a bit.

This time I also made another slight change: I dumped the mouse along with its temporary bedding (a couple of paper towels or some TP). This seemed to keep it from just running willy-nilly about.

All in all it was a model feed. The mouse eventually strayed farther and farther from his bedding and Snakey managed to hit the mouses head with his strike. (Actually the stupid thing practically walked into his mouth).

Interesting thing about the whole snake-safety with live feed issue. This time the mouse managed to start scratching a bit with his back feed. It was not strong enough to do any damage but I noticed that every time It tried to scratch it got squeezed even harder or got another coil wrapped. Man, I thought it was going to pop. Eventually, its back legs were unable to touch my snake at all.

[Gooseman]

I'm glad to hear you got the results you want. However I feel your (like most of us) are playing the position of the over paranoid mother-hen. Our snakes know what they're doing and are definatley capable of handling the task, we just want to make sure it's as efficient and hazard free as possible. However we are dealing with living creatures and no matter how much you prepare, something can always go wrong. And sometime down the road it probably will. A bite here or there is nothing really to worry about. The horror stories come from people not paying any attention to the live prey item in the cage and it ends up actually chewing on the snake.

None of this is to say what your doing is absurd, it's just that I hope that one day if the rodent does manage to draw a pin prick of blood from a stray scratch or a lucky bite you won't flip out.

[geckochick]

Thanks everyone. I think I will feed in a seprate container.

The next questions is live or F/T. Would I get a better feeding response from a baby BP if I use live?

[MeMe]

I have always fed all my snakes in their enclosures. Corn's, boa and bp's. Less stress...less chance for regurge.

When I first got Lucille the previous owner would set her in another enclosure to feed her. When I got her I put the rat in with her and she went right for it! no problems!