Feeding live to BPs opinion

I keep ball pythons and most of my snakes eat f/t except for 2. Although I do have those picky eaters, they still eat f/t. However, I think after 2 years of just f/t, I think I might go live for some of my snakes because of the fact its a little bit more convenient and I won't have to wait 30 minutes or a day to see if the snake ate the rat. What do you guys think, live more convenient or f/t?

*side note*
-I just need to get over my fear of holding rats before going live LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. But probably won't take that long after I see someone hold a rat in front of my a few times. I used to fear snakes, but got over that fear and now i have like 13.

Live is more expensive, unless you breed. Also if you get a refusal with live you have to keep it alive until the next feeding day. So long as it's done responsibly, there's very little risk of your snake getting injured by a live feeder. A lot of people here do it and never have issues. I don't feed live because 1) I get attached to refused feeders and want to keep them 2) F/T is cheaper 3) I can buy F/T in bulk online where I have to get live feeders one or two at a time.

I personally think f/t is more convenient, because I only offer for about 20 minutes regardless of the method of feeder. If he doesnt hit it within a half-hour, he's just not hungry. If he doesn't feel like eating that week, I can pop a dead rat in the freezer no problem, rather than maintaining the livelihood of a rat for another week (and possibly falling in love with it in the meantime, because rats are my favorite creature next to snakes lol.)

I have a rodent place here that sells rats pretty cheap here. I have only 2 or 3 live eaters. If they don't eat, then I can feed them to my other good eaters that never miss a meal. They eat like crazy. I say 3 because one of my snakes did take a f/t rat, but just coiled it. Checked on it today and she didn't eat it.

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Originally Posted by Archimedes

I personally think f/t is more convenient, because I only offer for about 20 minutes regardless of the method of feeder. If he doesnt hit it within a half-hour, he's just not hungry. If he doesn't feel like eating that week, I can pop a dead rat in the freezer no problem, rather than maintaining the livelihood of a rat for another week (and possibly falling in love with it in the meantime, because rats are my favorite creature next to snakes lol.)

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Do you only have one snake? Because its a bit different with me. I have like 13 and I know some breeders here in my area and others and they all fed live because of big collections; and I agree with them because my snake collection is growing too.

I feed live. I prefer it over F/T.
I find it more convenient and cheaper because I do have quite a few snakes. I also breed my own rats. The rats do pay for themselves, so my snakes are basically eating for free. If I had to thaw out frozen rats and do the zombie dance for all my snakes, it would take an hour or two to feed. Not pleasing for me at all.
With live, I just place the feeder in the tub, and move onto the next one. If I hear a strike, I check out that tub to see if the snake has a good hold and then leave them be. If the snake has a poor grip, I just stick something in the rat's mouth to prevent bites. But otherwise, not usually an issue anyway.
For feeders that are not eaten, just go back into the colony to be saved for next week or are tossed in with my ferrets. Feeding is a quick process.
With frozen, I'd rather not refreeze rats more than once, so I feel like a lot of my feeders would go to waste. Especially since 80% of my snakes won't take f/t.

I prefer live. It's much faster and more convenient for me. No time spent messing around with thawing out rodents, also no wasted rodents.

http://ball-pythons.net/forums/showt...ly-feed-F-T%29

I feed live and not only prefer it but I hate doing f/t.
I do f/t occasionally to a few of my best eaters, but picky eaters will never see a f/t

We're transitioning all of the snakes to f/t because the only place near us that sells live isn't open on Sunday, the day we prefer to feed, and it's not really all that close.

We also have some boas and kings that will happily gobble down f/t rodents if the picky BP's decide they aren't hungry.