Totally Awesome!

Today was the first time I have ever in my life fed a snake. I got my BP a week ago tonight. The sight of him striking was one hell of a sight. I have seen it on Animal Planet but never in person. All I can say is "WOW!" He's 40" long and from what I was told, 5 yrs old. His midsection is about the size of my fist. I fed him in a separate tank from his habitat. I gave him a small rat and he scarfed it down. After he was finished, he acted like he wanted more so I sent my hubby back to the pet store for another small rat. Dropped that second one in there and 'bam', dead rat. When he was done with the second one he licked his lips and I swear it looked like a big smile curled across his face. I opened the feeding tank over his habitat and he slithered right into his hide box. That was so freakin cool. I took pictures, too. Hopefully I'll have them up in a day or two. I'll post a link if anyone wants to see. Man, I'm so hyped about this.

Awesome!
I still remember the 1st time I saw my old snake feed. On another note though, you should watch out when feeding live food(Especially rats) because even if the snake gets a hold of it, the rats nerves can cause a freekish spaz where it starts clawing and biteing. While this probably won't hurt your snake because he's obviously a good size, it still can cause cuts and lead to infections that might cost you money and if nothing else hurt the snake. what I used to do was buy my rats and then kill them just before feeding.

This was the one and only time I'll feed live. Next feed will be frozen/thawed. I just wanted to see it one time.

might have a struggle getting him back onto frozen etc.

You might want to try what we do with the mice our bp eats. We have a spare cage and buy live then feed them up good for a couple of days, then we humanely kill the mice and immediately feed to our snake. We just use hemostats and grasp the mouse by the loose skin partway down it's back and do the mouse zombie dance.

It works really well as the snake is getting an immediately dead mouse so temps and everything must be incredibely close to live (as the mouse has been dead for about 3 seconds) and no hassle with thawing out a mouse and making sure it's warm enough and so forth.

I'm sure some here can tell you the most efficient, humane way to deal with the rat if you want to give this a try. It might be a way to transition the snake between live and f/t if you want to go that way as it's cheaper to buy bulk from a place like RodentPro than weekly from a pet store. We buy weekly right now as we have just the one snake to feed.

Remember tho lots do feed live (Adam is an excellent example) and as long as you learn the right way to do it from an experienced person it's not wrong to feed live if that's your choice and what your snake prefers. In the long run as long as the snake is okay and thriving, you're doing fine whether your feeding live, f/t or p/k or mice or rats.

Isn't that first feeding cool! We still get a kick everytime ours eats.


~~Joanna~~

If feeding live works for you then you should continue feeding your bp that. The cases of badly injured snakes occur when you leave a rat in the cage with the snake for days for weeks without any source of food. If you have questions on feeding live then ask around and you can learn what's essential for a safe feeding. Snakes are designed to kill live food, and their hard scales are a type of armor to protect them from any scratches. Don't be scared off feeding live if you feel comfortable feeding it. It may not work for you and that's fine too. I would still try and get 4 feedings in before transitioning to whatever it is you do want to feed. Oh and 1 small adult rat fed weekly is plenty of food for an adult bp. Be careful of overfeeding because this will lead to fasting in the future. Hope this helps. :)

Thank you for all the great advice. I was told by my friend that when I feed him not to take my eyes off him. So I sat there a foot fromt he tank the whole time. I don't mind feeding live or fresh kill. I was a bit concerned about the safety of Shikara. What should I do if the rat tries to attack the snake? Do I reach in there and pull the snake or rat out? I don't want some furry critter hurting my baby. I would never leave them in together for extended periods of time. If the snake doesn't eat or attempt to eat within 30 mins to an hour, should I take him out and wait a little while? Also, I know that some of the rats can be a bit more aggressive, what is the humane way to kill them? My friend was telling me to take a screwdriver and place it across the rats neck and jerk up on the tail to snap it's neck. Of course my friend knows a lot more about lizards than she does about snakes.

I've heard the cervical dislocation method works really well on mice but haven't heard about rats but should work once you get the method down. You'd just need to be fast and firm so the animal is humanely killed and not just badly injured.

We are going to look into building a small CO2 chamber eventually or go to bulk ordering from RodentPro as our local supply for mice is good but sizes vary too much and not good for rats at all. I'd rather stay with p/k but convenience will win out when we acquire more snakes I think.

Currently we place a live mouse in a small container and give it 1 or 2 strong hard shakes. This effectively disposes of the mouse but wouldn't work with a larger rat.

I'm not at all sure what one would do if a live rat turned on the snake. Hopefully someone that feeds live (Adam jump in here pls LOL) can give you real time advice that way and good sensible instructions on safe feeding of live prey. I agree tho, whatever you end up feeding I personally wouldn't push any transition too fast when the snake is still settling into your home.


~~Joanna~~