F/t or live?

Do you feed f/t or live, and your reason for either? I'm just curious, but am particularly interested in any large scale breeders' response.

For me, I feed live, for my benefit and my snake's. I'm a college student, I have a disability and am in the process of training a service dog and of course I take care of myself. I don't really have time to thaw the rat, spend more time properly heating it(which I sucked at) and then trying to get Khaa to eat it, which he may or may not. Khaa also eats very well on live. He never refuses live, except winter fast of course. I can just drop the rat in there , wait for him to grab it safely(never takes more than a minute), and go.

I feed live because it means I can buy in bulk and I don't have to worry about buying another mouse every week. Plus, in my experience, live are more expensive, and sometimes harder to find. There's the added risk of injuries toward your snake with live, but if you'd feeding responsibly like you say you are, then there should no worries. I feed Calliope live ever now and again, and both work as long as you are doing it responsibly.

When I feed f/t, I just put hot water in a cup, stick the mouse (still in the package) in the cup, and I can work on chores/homework/anything else while the mouse is heating up, so it isn't too time consuming.


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Originally Posted by PythonBabes

Do you feed f/t or live, and your reason for either? I'm just curious, but am particularly interested in any large scale breeders' response.

For me, I feed live, for my benefit and my snake's. I'm a college student, I have a disability and am in the process of training a service dog and of course I take care of myself. I don't really have time to thaw the rat, spend more time properly heating it(which I sucked at) and then trying to get Khaa to eat it, which he may or may not. Khaa also eats very well on live. He never refuses live, except winter fast of course. I can just drop the rat in there , wait for him to grab it safely(never takes more than a minute), and go.

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I feed F/T rats to my ball. She is a really good eater. I take it out defrost in cold water. Takes seconds and I leave it for 90 minutes to 2 hours. Hot water for fifteen minutes. I am not very experienced and probably would get stressed of an injury if I fed live.

I feed F/T cuz it's easier for me, sense I don't have to go out and buy mice each feeding day or care for the live mice until it's time to feed them. For me it's just easier to buy some dead one in bulk. Also I'm paranoid and am scared that when my little ones are big enough to eat full grown rats they might get hurt lol

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It's about being educated and feeding whatever works and is convenient.

I feed live mainly, because it works and when you have a larger collection and your collection collection double or triple during hatchling season, it just make sense.

My colubrids however all feed on F/T, it's a much smaller collection very easy to switch, do not care about what they eat and take live a little to literally.

F/T. Easy to buy in bulk online (6 months worth at a time). Cheaper than purchasing live, and less time consuming than raising my own (I tried that it it was more work and time than I wanted to spend).

If I end up growing my collection and breeding, I will have to raise my own feeders again to feed live to hatchlings at least. If that happens, I may try live with my older BPs, but for me, f/t is idea right now.

I feed f/t. When I researching, it always came up as the safest option, and while I agree with that, it's not always for everyone. No risk of bites or scratches from the prey item, etc. If Maze hadn't switched to f/t I for sure would have gotten a hold of live options, but man am I glad she did lol.

It's just also super convenient for me; all the places that sell live feeders around here have 'limited stock' and only sell them on Fridays, because th.at's when the trucks roll in. So, if I didn't get there soon enough, Maze would just have to wait to eat until I made it in time. (Which is an actual possibility, I have class early in the morning on Fridays until closer to noon.) Not exactly ideal with a baby snake in mind lmao. As for thawing, I just stick it in a bowl for 30 minutes, straight out of the freezer, and it heats right up to the perfect temp.

I've also noticed that unless the prey item is directly in front of Maze, she may not know that it exists. The breeder mentioned something along those lines when she was eating live with them. It could be nothing, but it's reassuring that she won't suffer an injury from not knowing the live feeder was near her. She's a full-throttle strike artist but finding the prey? Good mcLuck my dude, haha.

hmmm i wonder what Zincubus thinks.

:)

I feed both.

I prefer F/T and that is my main method of feeding. For many reasons. It is convenient for me, I don't have a reliable "live" source, I don't have to worry about injuries, my collection is small enough to where it is actually less time consuming to feed F/T.

However...I would NEVER ever not feed a snake live just to make a point or because of my own morals. I have hatchlings and they simply would NOT take f/t as their first meal. So they got live mouse hoppers. At this point I have switched ALL of my hatchlings to f/t. Most of them to f/t rats, a couple still prefer mice. It takes time and patience, but in the long run it will give the new owners "options", so its worth it to me.

The only thing I have a problem with is when people either don't take the time (or research) to do either method RIGHT and then complain about it. Or when people are so close minded that they feel its THEIR way or the highway. Or when people starve their animals rather then to give in and feed them live until they can slowly, safely and patiently be converted to F/T.

What is the maximum time you leave a live rodent in with your ball python? Is 20 minutes too long before checking on them?

I was against feeding live until three of my female breeders stopped eating for six months at a time using fresh killed rats and mice. They all started immediately after I started feeding live. It's actually easier for me to feed live since I breed my own rodents, it's quick, just move a rat from the rat breeding rack right into the snake tub. They are in the same room, super easy. And now all my females are eating.

That's only for my ball pythons though, I feed my King snakes and retics fresh killed, no problem getting them to eat every time. I also have some small Arizona Mountain King snakes, I feed them live mouse pinkies.

By the way, I raise rats in mice in an ARS rodent breeding rack, super easy to feed and clean in a rack system, takes me about an hour a week to clean them and it feeds 26+ snakes. And I usually have an excess of rats and freeze them and trade them for snakes and such with local breeders.

I would think that on a large scale feeding live to ball pythons would be the easiest.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

It's about being educated and feeding whatever works and is convenient.

I feed live mainly, because it works and when you have a larger collection and your collection collection double or triple during hatchling season, it just make sense.

My colubrids however all feed on F/T, it's a much smaller collection very easy to switch, do not care about what they eat and take live a little to literally.

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