The great debate... This time with ASF's

[Mike Cavanaugh]

Do you feed your snakes ASF's live or dead??? If you do feed live, have you ever had an injured snake as a result?

Obviously I will feed dead to the takers... just wondering about the others that REALLY prefer LIVE rodents.

If you do feed live, how do you do it? do you drop in the cage or do you hold in front of them?

I know the normal answers on this subject for rats and mice... but these little guys are "special."

Let the debate begin.....

[frankykeno]

Mike, we really don't do much different when offering a live ASF compared to a live "regular" rat. We have never restrained live prey.

With any new snake here, whether it's an adult or a little one, with any change in prey or in this case with a prey we were just learning about.....Mike and I tend to always err on the side of caution with our live feeds.

What we do at first is offer a prey smaller than what we think that snake can really take. We watch carefully to see how that specific snake reacts to the prey and how the prey animal reacts to the snake. We introduce all live prey as far away in the tub from the snake as possible, allowing the snake this room to set up it's strike and get a good bead on that living prey item across the tub. We watch for the intensity of the strike and how fast the snake has it's prey contained, constricted and quickly...dead.

We usually do that for a few feeds. That will mean for some of the bigger snakes that they are offered multiple, smaller rodents at each feeding but they seem quite fine with that. They are getting the volume they need for good, healthy growth without being at risk with a single larger prey item they aren't familar with. Over time and with close observation we decide if that specific snake is ready to move up in prey size. Some might never move up that much and simply stay with multiple smaller live rodents. It really depends on the snake.

Danu's a good example. She's just over 1,300 grams but still being rehabilitated and still well under her top conditioning. She's offered young ASF's, not at full adult size but well past weaning. She'll normally take 4 of these each week. If she wants 3, that's fine too, we let her actions guide our feeding. She's big enough to take a bigger ASF but since we are only a few short months into our experience with ASF's and in owning Danu - we're taking it slow and steady. We feel we need more experience in both this prey type and this snake to feel confident in offering anything bigger yet. Likely in another month or two, we'll bump her up slightly in ASF size and watch how that goes. For now, Danu is gaining just fine on this weekly total volume of prey.

Live feeding regular rats or ASF's, for us it's always about taking it slow, paying close attention and tailoring the feed to the unique needs and abilities of each snake.