Live feeding vs. pre-killed

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Live is not bad, irresponsible people are bad :gj:

I feed over 200 LIVE prey each month have done so for a little while :rolleyes: and never had issues and I know I am not the only one.

The problem with people that think live feeding is bad or dangerous is that they based their opinions on tale and/or horrible stories accompanied with pictures that are the result of IRRESPONSIBLE feeding and rarely form their opinion on first hand experience.

Now what I like to see is people choosing for themselves what THEY want to feed to their animal based on being knowledgeable about their feeding options, and be responsible, I don't want them to be scared by others.

I am not saying that because I feed live I say that because that is what I believe, I started off feeding frozen, I now mainly feed live and keep feeding frozen to a few animals so I know what to do with surplus rats during the winter.

BTW Frozen can be "bad" too if we want to go there if done irresponsibly it can kill your animal not just injure it. ;)

So anyway to be back on tract here, it's about being knowledgeable, responsible, and feed what works and is convenient for you and your animals. :gj:

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Thank you for this useful information :)

Back to the original post. Are you feeding the reduced pattern male you posted in your other pictures the 80 gram rats? If so that is way too big of a meal. I'm guessing by the pic you posted he is in the 200 gram range, in which case a 20-30 gram meal would be more appropriate. Feeding that big of a meal can be dangerous. It can cause him to regurgitate it, it might take him too long to digest and make him sick from the rotting flesh inside him, possibly even kill him. Power feeding really isn't recommended anyways.

That said, don't believe all the crap about live feeding being bad. Those horror stories are from irresponsible owners. We actually have a female ball python that we rescued that has some horrific scars from improper feeding. She was lucky because they are merely cosmetic. My wife and I have always fed live and in all of our years we have not had a single issue or injury to any of our snakes while in our care from feeding. Rabernet, the BP.net admin, is also a live feeder and she hasn't had any issues either and she is usually very outspoken about it.

:gj: