Success! They ate!

I would just do a small adult(past hopper stage) once a week and see how they do on those. Crawler mice just aren't a very substantial meal.

Also, with switching to frozen/thawed, I would let them have 3-4 consecutive feeds with the live mice(they are quite capable of taking down those mice, believe me) and then try to gradually switch them. My Balls look at frozen like it's the plague, LoL, but maybe yours won't be picky about that.

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Originally Posted by Nicole N

Ahhh I see. I hear so many conflicts about which path is the right way to go, it's almost as difficult as child-rearing LOL

I've heard both ends of the argument not to feed them in their home enclosure but I didn't know I'd make them feel less safe. There was a bulge in the neck, but once it reached the body I couldn't see the mouse anymore. Yep crawler mice. I think my male got the mouse down the fastest, and had gulped it in under a minute. My female took about 4 minutes, I even walked out the room for a moment to get a drink before coming back to see if she was still working on it. I will move the male up to a larger size.

Does anyone have any tips on switching to frozen, or able to offer some words on whats best? The last time we owned balls there were no frozens available as there are now and everything was done live, with us knocking the prey out beforehand. The place literally does have TONS of mice, so it would be easy for me to pick one out. Should I step them up to 2 crawlers a week instead of a single one each week?

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The separate feeding container is an issue where I disagree with the consensus around here. If you look around from other sources you'll find that feeding in a separate container is nearly standard advice. If your snake is feeling less secure then you should be able to tell - there's nothing magical about it.

Also, most of the arguments against out-of-cage feeding are from people who are just hypothesizing and have little or no real experience to tell them otherwise. My favorites are the whole "don't stress the snake" or "the snake will prefer eating in its own home" ones. I use the "in-the-wild" sanity check on this one:
1) No animal on this planet is designed to live a stress free life. In fact, it is usually detrimental when humans create this for animals or themselves.
2) BP's in Africa don't sit around in a tiny area and wait for mice to run up to them. They must hunt and eat "out of the house".

Regurg is a real issue obviously. But, in the one convincing story I've seen on this, the owner basically repeated the same procedure over and over instead of trying different things - such as leaving the snake in the feeding tub for some period of time.

As a new owner I can totally sypathize with the massive amount of conflicting information out there. Keep in mind that many of the issues really come down to owner and/or snake preference - no matter how vigorous the arguments. So, in the end, I'd have to say do what feels right. To me, I like the comfort of knowing that my snake has never struck anywhere but inside his feeding tub, and never at me. After two or three feeds he picked up the routine and there's no stress at all.

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Also, most of the arguments against out-of-cage feeding are from people who are just hypothesizing and have little or no real experience to tell them otherwise.

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Make your point as you wish, however, demeaning others experience to do so is really uncalled for.

Nicole, the best advice I can pass along really is to gather information from many sources, compare and constrast it, look for consistency from various sources and then go with what in the end works for you from that knowledge base and what the snake will accept easily. Most of the time common sense will be your best guide when it's balanced with good, solid advice. :)

Ok, my last post was maybe a bit rude. I'm probably a bit testy because I've had a few people here go at me about this with a fairly condescening attitude. I was not really intending to attack anybody in particular, just being a bit defensive perhaps.

And yes, I agree. "Trust the force Luke". :sabduel:

If you pay good attention to your snake then you'll be able to figure out what works best for them and you. In most cases, that will decide these issues for you.

You do not need a seperate feeding container. I can think of no good reason to use one. My snakes are fed live in their tubs (in a rack) and none of them are aggressive. What merit is there in removing them from their habitat, where they spend their entire life, and putting them into some big empty place? I would feel more like a prey item in a setting like that, not a predator. I am not trying to be sarcastic, but rather, realistic.

your whole eating out of house idea works against you too you know right? because a lot of reasoning at least if i can remember correctly about feeding outside of the cage (besides reducing in cage aggression due to feeding response) is so that the snake will be in a dark container (less stress) and will not have a substrate to eat along with the rodent.
I don't feed in a separate container and i don't have striking problems, well except for a BRB who is just a mean s.o.b anyway, and the snakes that are on aspen don't eat enough to worry me. also you bring up handling right after, that just has to do with common sense, its the difference between walking somewhere post meal, and riding a roller coaster post meal.

so basically, to each his own, nothing is set in stone, as long as it doesn't hurt the animal, do what works best for both of you.

I know my snake really well and I just don't see this uncomfort at all. Furthermore, he's done the feeding tub thing enough times now that its not foreign to him and he knows exactly what's about to happen even before I introduce the mouse. He always eats right away.

This is where I get a bit upset because I regularly run into comments that imply that out-of-cage feeding is nearly moronic. I don't think there is a whole lot of real hard evidence against it and I strongly suspect that alot of the people that expouse a strong opinion on the subject haven't actually done it and had trouble. This is because I'll see several posts with arguments against it but its only rarely that I see somebody with an actual tale to tell. I've also seen other people say they feed out-of-cage and promptly get shut down. They just never reply and keep it to themselves as far as I can tell.

Another thing is I can go to my local snake store where there are probably 50 balls in various age ranges. of course, for practical reasons they have to do seperate feeding. Anway, they can pull any one of them out at any time for you to hold and there isn't any biting or hissing. I'm always amazed at how many people here have balls that strike and hiss at them.

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Originally Posted by qiksilver

your whole eating out of house idea works against you too you know right? because a lot of reasoning at least if i can remember correctly about feeding outside of the cage (besides reducing in cage aggression due to feeding response) is so that the snake will be in a dark container (less stress) and will not have a substrate to eat along with the rodent.
I don't feed in a separate container and i don't have striking problems, well except for a BRB who is just a mean s.o.b anyway, and the snakes that are on aspen don't eat enough to worry me. also you bring up handling right after, that just has to do with common sense, its the difference between walking somewhere post meal, and riding a roller coaster post meal.

so basically, to each his own, nothing is set in stone, as long as it doesn't hurt the animal, do what works best for both of you.

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I feed in a clean, empty rubbermaid storage tub under full lighting. I sit right there and watch the whole thing in plain view of the snake. When he's done I very gently lift him out and put him back in his cage. Its clear to me that he associates the container with feeding because I don't even have to pre-scent it any more and he's starts winding up right away even before the mouse gets dumped in.

Run, Nicole, run!

LOL