Tranquilized rats

When I was in high school there was a teacher with 2 ball pythons crammed together in a 40 gallon tank, maybe smaller. The snakes coiled up took up the entire floor of the tank and they had to be on top of each other to fit. She was a science teacher an loved animals apparently. Anyways so she fed her pythons a live medium/large rat maybe once every 2 weeks. But the weird part was she would tranquilize the rats. The rats were alive and able to move a little bit. Think waking up a lazy teenage early in the morning sluggish. Is that healthy for the snake? Does anyone else do this? This isn't me being against feeding live or anything but tranquilized rats...?

What do you mean by tranquilized?

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

What do you mean by tranquilized?

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My teacher would give the rats some sort of a sedative or inject them with a tranquilizer couple of minutes before feeding. I don't know what drug she used.

DANGER DANGER!! what goes in the rodent goes in the serpent..

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Originally Posted by Freakie_frog

DANGER DANGER!! what goes in the rodent goes in the serpent..

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Yea exactly...
That doesnt sound like the best idea to me lol.

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Originally Posted by barbie.dragon

My teacher would give the rats some sort of a sedative or inject them with a tranquilizer couple of minutes before feeding. I don't know what drug she used.

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Because that would not be stressful to the rat? :rolleyes:

Obviously as being said what goes in the rat goes in the snake.


It's just nature taking it's course...........

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Because that would not be stressful to the rat? :rolleyes:

Obviously as being said what goes in the rat goes in the snake.


It's just nature taking it's course...........

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The rats would squeak so I'm assuming they're pretty much conscious of what's happening but they just couldn't bite the snake or anything. I just thought it would be unsafe for the snake to consume a rat with sedatives in it. Why the eye rolling?

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Originally Posted by barbie.dragon

The rats would squeak so I'm assuming they're pretty much conscious of what's happening but they just couldn't bite the snake or anything. I just thought it would be unsafe for the snake to consume a rat with sedatives in it. Why the eye rolling?

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it is.

either feed live, pre killed, or frozen. stunning rodents really isn't a good idea. If they wake up they can be extremely aggressive.

She probably didn't know about frozen/thawed rodents, and didn't have the stomach or heart enough to feed a coherent live rat. Poor animal care=you shouldn't be a pet parent!

Tranquilizing rats are 100% unnecessary and irresponsible.
If she's afraid of a live rat injuring her snake, then perhaps she shouldn't feed large rats. Or feed f/t.
Large live rats are a no no to feed large BPs. Live medium would be the most.
Large rats have the potential to be highly dangerous. There are safe methods to feeding live, such as feeding smaller meals and more often rather than larger and less frequent. Feeding a small or weaned rat once a week is much safer than feeding a large adult rat. They aren't as strong and not as conscious to danger.