Feeding Time question

Im not wanting to know the pro's and cons of frozen vs live, for now ive decided live. but my question is how can you best prevent a rat from harming your ball python. Is it something that just inevitably happens someday? Is it the olders ones that can only hurt them? B/c it seems to my like the weanlings would have a harder to hurting them but idk. I dont know what are yalls tips on not letting your ball pythons get hurt? I do try to stun them sometimes but what worries me about that is what if i hurt it but my ball python decides to not eat then i have a hurt rat that will either live in a lot of pain or die. And lastly, I am about to switch from glass aquariums to a rack system for my snakes. Whats the best way to monitor them eating in there tubs?

The most effective way is to watch your snake very carefully while it feeds and intervene should you see the rat beginning to harm your snake. Unfortunately, at that point your snake is already hurt.

As for what size rat could do the most damage, logic says that the larger the rat, the larger the damage, but personally I wouldn't want any size rat biting one of my snakes.

Any thing with a mouth and teeth can and will bite. Buying from a good rat breeder/pet store will prevent this from happening most of the time. If the rat isn't hungry, ti's not going to look for something to eat when placed in the snake's enclosure.

But once the snake strikes and coils all best are off. But lets face it, these snakes have been eating live food forever. They must know how to do it properly, since most never seem to get bitten.

I think most snakes are bitten because the rodent is left in the enclosure too long. So if your snake doesn't eat the rat in say 2 hours (this time frame is something you will have to determine), remove the rat and feed it to another snake. If none of the snakes eat it, you will have to dispose of the rat somehow.

Good Luck!
Jim Smith

You could stun the prey before feeding but I've heard good and bad things on that. I personally just toss them in the rack. Normally they snatch the prey right up but if they don't I take the rat out within 20-30 min. Ive been getting my rats from a private breeder but... I usually get them a day or two before feed day. I have a couple cages set up for the feeders and give them a couple good meals so they are essentially "gutloaded" and not hungry. Now I am slowly converting to breeding them which is more work for me but I know what the rats have been eating and being kept. I like that better. Or you could try fresh killed. The Rats will be fresh and at perfect temp at that point and you may spend a few more min at feeding time, but no bites. Even though I feed live I have never had any serious injury to any of my snakes. You might get a little nip here or there but if you are vigilant you could easily stop that with a chopstick inbetween teeth. Since I feed live though I always watch, immediatly take out any rats that aren't eaten, and I've always got a bottle of betadyne in the medicine cabinet for any accidents.

A live mouse/rat will bite your snake. It would be best to kill it fresh then feed it to your snake. You can trap its head with a ruler or other object against a hard surface then tug quickly on the tail. If nothing, it would be paralyzed. That or stab the skull with a sharp point to encourage feeding by exposing brain matter.

I feed live and I have them in seperate tubs to feed. I watch them the whole time till they swallow the rats and im ready with a stick to keep my snakes safe. Sometimes when they grab them i gotta put a stick in the rat mouth cuz they try to bite the snake. I am just really cautious and dont want to take chances haha