Re: First Time Feeding Live
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Crowfingers
I'm glad your snake ate and it wasn't a super painful process for you. Learning to feed anything to something else IS hard, and not to be taken lightly.
I started working with wildlife when I was a teenager, and when prepping a predator for release there is no other option. One of may first tasks was to incubate and raise quail chicks, and care for a large mouse and rat colony, and occasionally rabbits for prey for hawks / foxes / coyotes etc. . . it was REALLY hard to watch something you hatched / watched grow from a pinky be fed to something - and for a while I felt bad, but then seeing the predator finally make it into the wild knowing that it can in fact hunt is also a rewarding feeling.
It's been years now since I've felt guilty, but I've been very desensitized to it, it is nature and nature is not the kindest thing. However, I don't feed live to my snake. The risk of injury, the unpredictable fasts, feeding/housing the rodent is just too much of a pain when he's content to eat frozen. It is something that we each have to decide on for ourselves. As long as neither the snake or the rodent is suffering needlessly then feeding live is fine and part of having an animal that eats prey, but for people that can't do it for whatever reason, they shouldn't be thought less of either.
And I myself love rats. I would "save" at least one a year from the colony, hand raise it and keep it for a pet. At one point I have 5 female rats as pets. I know that too this day, if I were feeding live and my snake went on a hunger strike...i'd have a pet rat (especially if it were a friendly one) :)
I’ve had both rats and mice as pets before, before we fed her I had even said that we might end up with a pet mouse XD
It helped with me just not to think about it to much, the entire ride home I wouldn’t even look at it or think to much on it. If she would take frozen thawed or she was older and had some more weight on her and could afford to miss a few more feedings I wouldn’t have done live but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Re: First Time Feeding Live
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Zincubus
I know it's the norm to feed live in the states and that's all well and good but it does seem strange to see so many saying that 'theIrs' will ONLY eat live .
It is kinda odd that the snakes in the UK are more than happy to devour thawed frozen mice and rats ..... some of the strikes and lunges scare the life out of me .. .. never once have I even considered feeding live in over ten years - currently have 20 snakes - including 5 Royals.
It's all very puzzling
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro
Granted I'm in the States I often see you as well as others across the pond talk on this topic. It seems strange to me as well. In my years keeping multiple species, including BPs I've never had a snake flat out refuse to eat anything but live. Sometimes you just have to wait them out, sometimes a few live feedings are needed to get them on track. But in my experience they all take F/T eventually.
I personally hate feeding live, and will avoid it until I'm out of options. Being an animal lover, I hate seeing animals die. The frozen prey has simply become snake food over time. I don't even see mice or rats anymore, just food. The same way a steak or a bucket of wings is just food. I don't see a cow or a chicken, just food. Feeding live, I see a mouse or rat, not food.
Strange, I know. But that's me in a nutshell. Hahahaha :rolleye2:
