Tongs Or No Tongs???

If you feed your py with tongs does that make them able to strike your hand when you are to handle them, or is it better to put the mouse in their hide????

I like tongs, or hemostats. The snake is able to make it more clear what it's food is rather than feeding it with your hand. What are you feeding? live, p/k, or f/t?

if it's p/k or f/t, you can use hemostats to do da cha cha

if it's live, most just put it in the enclosure. Keep an eye on it tho :)

I do it the amature way. I tap the side of the tank my snakes head pops out of their hides (ever so slowly) and then I tap the ground a ft away from the snake with the rats head and they catch it with a blink of an eye. I do this with lights off (they dont like it with the lamp on) and I always make sure the food is warm enough for them to see. But I only do this with my Corn snake and Bp. Its not safe to have "light off" with a 9ft RTB and a 14ft Retic. And it sort of scares me to do it with lights off. They have a much stronger feeding response (we tested it) and oy did it scare me.. even though we always have a flashlight on at the time, but it doesnt produce heat or distract them from eating. So if you have a large snake use tongs, always have someone with you, have lights on, but probably dim (like a lamp-light across the room) But with 5ft and smaller snakes you can do as what i said. I always got friend's problem eaters to eat by having lights off when feeidng my snakies:) But always use tongs especially if your new to the game. And ALWAYS use tongs with larger snakes. PLZ dont risk your life so you can dangle food for your snake. Tongs are soo much safer and I would never recommend feeding without them.

Ok he jumped on the mouse! Now he just moved up from pinkies to hoppers, how long does it take them to swallow these guys??

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Originally Posted by codpy

Ok he jumped on the mouse! Now he just moved up from pinkies to hoppers, how long does it take them to swallow these guys??

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You never need to feed mouse pinkies. 7-10day old rat pups, maybe! But Bps can be on hoppers when they are hatchlings. Mine was, and he was the smallest one there! He was only 14inches, and the other were 16-18 inches. Always feed food the size of the biggest part of the snakes body and not too much wider then the snake's head is long.:) Oh and depending on the size of food they'll swalow them from a few seconds to 3-5mins. My snake eats two small rats per week-9days and swallows his within minutes and then is ready for more:D

How often do I feed the hoppers, my guy is about 17", but about as thick as my thumb?

At that size, small adult mice or rat pinks will work. Feed once a week. Most of mine are on a Friday night feeding schedule. Some are sooner and some are longer between feedings but for yours. once a week should be fine.

Hoppers should be the first size you start with and move up from there. BP's are usually pretty good about taking larger size prey items.

Use hemos, tongs, or tweezers. Keep your hands away from the food unless you want to get tagged when it misses. BP's tend to have pretty bad aim compared to other snakes.:D

Thanks for the info!!!!

i use chopsticks feeding f/t with two of the snakes, my friend dangled it, but with the third one i just placed it, and he ate it

I have to use tongs because my BP is always out "waiting" on top of his hide for dinner. He knows that Thursdays are feeding days. I would feed with tongs even if he was in his hide though.