Ive learned about feeding snakes from this!!!!

The easiest way to stun them is supposedly to put them in a bag and whack them against a wall or table good and hard so that it's sudden for them instead of just causing pain. Hold on to the bag carefully, too, because I read a funny story about accidentally letting go of the bag and having two rats crawling around that wouldn't have been such a funny story if the person involved hadn't caught them quickly.

elevatethis, you might want to see if your roommate would deal with it okay if you had them in a solid-colored sealed plastic container. If your roomie never has to see them, it might not be such a big deal.

can you do this with gerbils and rabitts and other animals if you want to treat your snake to a fancy feast every once in a while??? I have to go back to work right now, thanks for the advice

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Originally Posted by bigslimrich

can you do this with gerbils and rabitts and other animals if you want to treat your snake to a fancy feast every once in a while??? I have to go back to work right now, thanks for the advice

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Being the finicky eaters that they seem to be...I personally wouldn't ever feed my bp anything but the mice or rat it was established on. If you offer a gerbil or rabbit (pinky size?) it might decide it likes those better and refuse the more common rodents. I don't think snakes need "treats" like a dog or cat might.

Disclaimer: This coming from someone who does not yet own a bp...but I'm having the same types of feeding challenges with my gopher, too.

I agree with Judy, except that I think it's a good idea to progress from mice to rats if you can so that you can feed just one prey item per meal, of appropriate size. Also, if I had one go off feed for long enough, I probably would try gerbils, but not as a "treat."

ok, i see, its best to keep feeding them what they already know and like. I can see trying to feed a gerbil or something if it was fasting, but i won't unless he goes a while without eating. So far he has not refused a meal, when i put him in the feeding box he already knows he is about to find some food!! He will kill the mouse within the first minute most of the time, I just want to keep him healthy, happy, and eating good, i think he will go to f/t or prekilled pretty easy. (I hope)

It sounds like you have a good eater on your hands and shouldn't have too much trouble switching him over. You might want to try p/k first and then f/t, as some snakes apparently make the transition easier that way. Also, if you have a BP that's at least 1 yr old and it goes off feed in the winter and isn't losing a lot of weight, I wouldn't sweat that too much as it's more than likely just a normal winter fast not calling for anything drastic.

Hi Guys-
I have a really simple way to kill mice and small to med. rats without beating the crap out of them. Hold them by their tail and set them on a flat serface, very quickly put your first finger and thumb between the back of their head and shoulders apply pressure to hold them in place and give a quick yank to the tail. Basicly you just severed their spinal cord. You have to be quick because as soon as you hold their heads down they freak out. It takes some prctice but it's really quick once you get the hang of it, and it's a lot more humane than beating them to death, and a lot less messy.
Hope this helps .
Hockeymom

Have you ever had difficulty with that method? I've seen a lot of posts elsewhere where people ended up skinning the rat's/mouse's tail or pulling off the tail doing that instead od severing the spinal cord as they were trying to do. That seems even crueler than having your head bashed quickly, to be skinned alive or have an appendage pulled right off!

If you hold the tail close to the body and hold on to more than just the tip you shouldn't skin them. i kind if hold the base of the tail and and run the rest of the tail thru my fingers. Size is an issue, you can't use this method with a large or jumbo rat.

Since I'm only feeding bp's, I won't need to use it on a large or jumbo rat anyway. I've been considering switching my bp's to rats because they're getting close to that size now, but have been concerned about killing them humanely because out Petco only carries f/t mice, not rats. It'll probably be a while still, but I may try your method.