Never Felt This Way Until Now..thoughts?

There's nothing at all "sick" about liking rats or enjoying their antics even if their eventual end is as a feeder animal. I'm sure a lot of beef farmers quite like their cows and the calves but still understand what that animal's place is in the scheme of things. I personally quite like rats. I think they make excellent pets as well as a great source of food for our snakes. At one time before I kept so many of them, most of my breeder adults had names. I appreciate the rat's role in our family being able to keep the number of snakes we have. I understand the dynamic between the predator and it's prey as well as the mechanics of the quick and clean kill ability of a snake.

Having said all that, it's your snake so you should do what is best for you and more importantly what is best for your snake.

I now feed everyone F/T. It can sometimes be difficult to switch over to F/T if the snake is a picky eater. But as for your actual question. I too like rodents (as pets) and i have bred and kept them before (not as feeders) but now that im not breeding or keeping any rodents as pets i didnt get attatched to any that i was feeding before i got my female on F/T.

In fact, i would have the herp shop near me give me the albino rat or the ungliest one they had LOL! To me the colored ones or the dumbos are too cute to feed. But i do understand the food chain. My snakes are too important to me to let something like caring for a rodent, get in the way of feeding them..

Thanks for the feedback guys. As much as I like the idea of my snake being able to hunt prey, I think im going to make the switch. Of course if a snake only takes live its a done deal. Doesn't bother me too much..mabye I'll feel differently in a month but for now im going to give the f/t thing a try.

:)

I think it's easier for rat, snake and me to feed larger prey items prekilled or FT.

We have some big snakes that hit their food hard, and I know the rat wouldnt know what hit it within a few seconds as the force of the squeeze literally knocks them out, but for ball pythons, we don't feed much bigger than a weaner.

And I LOVE rats too. Every last one of the breeders is named. Call me crazy...

Well they are living animals, nothing wrong with loving them. I feed f/t whenever I can, but when my snakes only take live I go ahead and feed them live.

I don't take enjoyment in a mouse suffering, but it is interesting to watch a snake hunt. If the snake doesn't take the mouse the first time, I actually have a seperate tank with bedding and a hide and I give the mouse food and water. Actually they are very cute little fuzz balls...

Personally I love rabbits so I cant stand feeding them live, EVER. Pre killed I still don't like, but live I cant' stand. I suppose that rules out burms/retics/rocks/anacondas for me :(

I mean if you treat the mouse kindly and dont throw it etc, it shouldnt be too much suffering. Snakes constrict them rather quickly, and for aesthetic purposes, the prey item doesn't ever get mutilated really.

It's really just a part of "taking an oath" when you keep snakes. I say do what you need to do for the snake while keeping in mind the feeder's well being. Good luck.

I'm working towards getting all of my snakes to eat frozen/thawed. I love rats and like mice as pets, so I want to be as humane to them as possible. I also don't want to risk my snakes getting hurt. And ordering bulk frozen from online works out to be a lot cheaper than buying live feeders from the store, even with shipping.

So far all of the snakes that I've tried to feed F/T have gone for it except two. One is a picky eater, one was probably stressed because I'd just gotten him. I plan on trying them both on F/T again soon. It actually wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be to get some of mine to make the switch.

Some of my snakes will take FT, some will take pre-killed, and some insist on live.
You can pre-kill the rats. Of course the approved method of doing so is euthanasia via carbon dioxide. An extremely hard, swift blow to the head will kill a rat painlessly and instantly, but you'll feel absolutely terrible if you should happen to miss.

If it is any consolation, death by constriction is actually usually VERY fast indeed. The animal isn't suffocated to death--it is squeezed so hard that its blood stops flowing, and its heart stops. Unconsciousness occurs within a few seconds. The struggling that appears to occur later on is due to reflexive muscle spasms as the animal actually dies--death throes. It has already been unconscious for some time by the time this happens, and it remains unaware.

If you can bring yourself to do so, watch more closely next time, and you will see just how fast the lights go out--you can tell the moment, because the animal stops struggling or trying to bite. It's reassuring to know that death is usually too swift for them to feel much.
Rats scream when they are startled--the snake's bite hurts, but it's not tremendous pain, because the teeth are so sharp--the rat has little time to panic before it's unconscious. I've had a rat scream when I grabbed it, and it wasn't expecting it--the scream doesn't necessarily indicate pain.

I hate mice and love seeing them die by the dozens, the little buggers irritate me. But rats are cute and sweet and lick you and cry red.

Personally I just feed f/t. And rats from the start (the only mice my snakes eat are when they're still small and I run into a jam and have to get lives).