Do you feed Frozen thawed or live?

No, it's not a necessity. Although it is recommended that you feed frozen thawed most of the time. I give my snakes frozen thawed, and the occasional live rodent. With frozens you do lose SOME nutrients. It's also good for the snake to excersise that natural instinct to constrict every once an a while.

Frozen thawed is VERY conveniant. You just grab a mouse/rat from the freezer, thaw it in warm water (NEVER in a microwave, unless you want a disgusting gutty mess) and feed it to the snake.

I feed frozen thawed for a couple of reasons.

A. It's easy

B. The snakes don't mind.

C. The only place that sells live feeders is Petco and I don't want my snakes getting parasites.

D. I don't want to breed my own.

I've never understood why people doubt a snake's ability to eat.
Thousands of years of evolution have taught my snakes to kill live prey, and that is what they do.

As long as you don't leave a rat or mouse unsupervised for a long period of time, you're fine.

If give them their food and check in half an hour to see if they have eaten. If not, it's removed. 90% of the time they nail it in the first 30 seconds. I make sure the grip is good and the rat's not biting, and I leave them alone.

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Originally Posted by Kingofspades

I've never understood why people doubt a snake's ability to eat.
Thousands of years of evolution have taught my snakes to kill live prey, and that is what they do.

As long as you don't leave a rat or mouse unsupervised for a long period of time, you're fine.

If give them their food and check in half an hour to see if they have eaten. If not, it's removed. 90% of the time they nail it in the first 30 seconds. I make sure the grip is good and the rat's not biting, and I leave them alone.

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just because one feeds f/t doesn't mean that one doubts a snakes ability to catch and kill a live prey item. It does however prevent the slim chance that a prey item can bite back and injure the snake in the process. That's something we can do as responsible keepers is help prevent any un-necessary harm to our animals. It comes down to personal preference of the keeper and the snake, cause ultimately they have the last word on what they're going to eat.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Kingofspades

I've never understood why people doubt a snake's ability to eat.
Thousands of years of evolution have taught my snakes to kill live prey, and that is what they do.

As long as you don't leave a rat or mouse unsupervised for a long period of time, you're fine.

If give them their food and check in half an hour to see if they have eaten. If not, it's removed. 90% of the time they nail it in the first 30 seconds. I make sure the grip is good and the rat's not biting, and I leave them alone.

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It's really a convenience thing for me. When I got my first BP I was told she only ate live mice and instead of trying to switch her I feed her live. She never had a problem killing the mouse but it was such a pain to go to the store every week and some days they only had smaller ones. I tried keeping 3 of them for a while, but I think mice stink. It is much easier to take rat out of my freezer, warm it up and offer it to her. My BPs get feed on a consitant 6 day schedule now instead of the variable 6-10 day schedule. So I know my BPs could eat live, but it's easier for me to feed f/t.

I understand convenience. I was just talking about the people who are insanely worried about the snake getting hurt.
I also understand not wanting the snake to get messed up by a rat or mouse.

I am just saying I am not like that. Sorry if it came off a little preachy.

I've had one rat bite a snake, and it didn't even break the skin. Snake didn't care.
(Also, I stopped it once I saw it was happening. It bit twice.)

I breed my own mice and rats.

I will probably switch to F/t as my collection grows though, for convenience, but even then I will probably gas and freeze my own rodents.