You know you're a snake owner when...

In every pursuit in life there are "defining moments" which tend to drive home just how dedicated you are to this pursuit.

In bicycling, it's an endurance event such as a Century ride (100 miles or more in one day) for road bikes, or one of the "time" rides for Mountain biking. Casual cyclists don't do those; they take too much time and training to prepare for.

My latest Ball Python acquisition, Dixie, has yet to eat for me. Since the people I bought her from said that they had been feeding her live food, I broke down and purchased a live rat this week to offer to her. While the rat was no larger than the ones I feed to Phil and Magellan, who are only about 2/3 to 3/4 her size, she seemed more intimidated by the rat than appetized by it, though I offered it to her on 3 separate occasions.

Tonight, she approached it as though interested, but retreated back to her corner when she actually contacted it. One of two things had to happen tonight: Either she had to eat the rat, or the rat had to go somehow. Maintaining the rat for the past few days reminded me why I refuse to have rats or mice for pets. Not only do they start stinking rapidly if you don't clean their cages VERY often, but even the hint of the smell of such rodents sets both my wife's and my allergies in motion.

Tonight I whacked my first rat. That doesn't sound like much to a lot of people, but it struck me as one of those "defining moments". I'm not a hunter nor a fisherman. Killing things for sport has no appeal to me (though I'm not one of those who thinks that everyone should be denied the option of participating in those sports). Removing the live rat from Dixie's enclosure, dropping it into a plastic grocery bag, and then swinging the bag forcefully against the cinderblocks which support Dixie's enclosure was a very effective way to kill a rat, but not something I relished doing.

The whacked rat is lying in Dixie's enclosure, just in case she finds defenseless chow more appealing, and feels more inclined to eat without an audience (which I would not allow when the rat was alive in her enclosure).

Every snake should be as eager a feeder as Phil is. He rarely turns down a meal. Magellan is a bit more "finicky", though both he and Phil polished off the F/T rats I offered them this week. If Dixie doesn't feed soon, I'm going to try contacting the folks I bought her from, and seeing if I can get more information on exactly what and how they fed her. Perhaps they fed live adult mice, and rats just aren't "familiar" to her, or they fed her in a different container, and she doesn't like eating in her home enclosure. I'm not worried yet; she's still plenty healthy looking and far from "emaciated", and a long ways from pushing the limits of how long a BP can and will go without feeding. It would just be nice to know for certain that it's her decision to not eat, and not something I might be doing wrong.

Not having to whack any more rats myself wouldn't hurt my feelings, either.

Dixie is lucky to have such a dedicated "parent". I hope she eats for you soon!

I understand what you mean about whacking being a defining moment. I have yet to cross that threshhold myself, though it may be inevitable. Good luck with getting Dixie to eat.

Man it must have taken about four or five rats before I quit feeling kinda bad about it. Now I am comfortably numb. It's those ones that don't go gently into that good night on the first swing that make me cringe..........

U get over it! I just do what Godsy said. Grabbed them and threw them really hard against the floor. A squeak later they were goners! Now I just buy frosties from Petco; makes life a lot easier to handle :wink:

I had the petstore kill the first one for Sophie (we've only had her a couple weeks), but it came back to life twice, so we fed it to her alive, but dazed. This week I went to Petco and bought frozen, was worried she would refuse it since she was always fed live prey, but she ate it w/o a problem. PHEW, cuz there's no way I'm going to even try to kill a mouse/rat for her, too gruesome for me I guess. I'm a wuss :roll:

Well congratulations on that Rite of Passage, Hoomi. :) Like Marla said...that's one threshold I haven't crossed yet, but do feel it is inevitable someday.

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I understand what you mean about whacking being a defining moment. I have yet to cross that threshhold myself, though it may be inevitable. Good luck with getting Dixie to eat.

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I have never killed any animal unless it was an accident, A mercy killing, or I planed on eating it. And I still dont think I can. When the time comes..........Im gonna have to let the boy do it for me.

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Well congratulations on that Rite of Passage, Hoomi.

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Ditto!!

I hear ya, Carl. The only thing I am entirely comfortable killing is ants, though I've been known to do in cockroaches as well. I've never intentionally killed anything larger than a palmetto bug and I'm not sure how able I'd be to do it, despite all the reassurances of how easy it is to do.

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Originally Posted by JLC

Well congratulations on that Rite of Passage, Hoomi. :) Like Marla said...that's one threshold I haven't crossed yet, but do feel it is inevitable someday.

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THANKS! Glad we crossed that bridge safely!