Should I attempt to feed on Saturday

I don't mind feeding live and am willing to do so. I've had to do it for my corn before when there were no available frozen feeders around me. She did fine but I like her being on F/T, that way I don't have the problem of the mice biting her. I've had to step in a few times and give the mouse something else to chew on so it would not harm my snake.

We'll try live this weekend and if they both take live, we will try F/T next week. If they don't take the F/T, we'll do live again. Then the week after we'll try F/T again.

Hopperes and rat pups will not bite your snake, they barely have teeth yet. If you are feeding hoppers i assume you have a very small(baby) snake. I would recommend feeding live for the first month or more until he is an established eater then try making making the transformation. it is true many BP's will not touch F/T or P/K so you may have many refusals before anyone eats.Yyou want to make sure the snake has been eating well before you switch so the poor guy doesn't loose weight. I have many snakes that won't even look at a dead rodent and when I tried to switch to P/K alot of rats died for nothing which was not fun. Now I feed all my 30+ snakes live and never have problems. I do feed smaller rodents so they are easily killed by the snake and their feeding response it always aggressive. As they get larger rat pups and weanlings are nice because they are as big or bigger than mice but cannot hurt your snake. And yes feed Saturday! Good luck!

What happens when you get up to the bigger rodents, adults. Those have a higher chance of hurting the snake, right? What do you do then?

And as for size. The male ball python, Xefaud, is 68g. The female is a bit larger, but we couldn't get a weight on her. She was too stressed out and we just left her alone.

I feed live and watch under close supervision until I know the rat is dead. There are alot of nay sayers for live, but i've read many times that when a snake constricts the prey thier death is instant, almost like having complete heart failure, but then there are always what ifs? like what if the snake has a bad strike etc. I've seen bad bags of F/T bloody etc, and since I consider myself a responsible snake owner, Live is the way for me. I always make sure that whatever I feed is lights out before putting the lid back on. Just my :2cent:

Would assisting be ok? Or would that stress the snake out too much. When I saw assist, I mean being there in case the mouse/rat does try and inflict harm on the snake. For example, when I feed my corn live I stand there at the cage with a small metal rod (smaller than a pencil) and put the rod in horizontally in the mouse's mouth if it start doing that biting motion too close to my snake. It gives the mouse something to bite on other than my snake. Is this ok? I've done it twice with no problem.

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Originally Posted by Jay_Bunny

What happens when you get up to the bigger rodents, adults. Those have a higher chance of hurting the snake, right? What do you do then?

And as for size. The male ball python, Xefaud, is 68g. The female is a bit larger, but we couldn't get a weight on her. She was too stressed out and we just left her alone.

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Really you never need to feed your adult BP anything larger than a small rat which an adult BP will smother in seconds. Some feed larger items but thats where the risk of injury begins and also over fed BP's can go off feed and become very unpredictable feeders.

Looking at the size of you snake (baby) a mouse hopper is perfect and after a few meals you could try a rat pink. Both are totally harmless and could even be left in the enclosure overnight for picky/problem feeders. Baby snakes can be fed every 5-7 days.

Alright so on that note, if you had a Ball who fed the first week frozen but hasn't eaten for almost two weeks due to F/T refusal you should try live defintely without question.

I always feed live as I always monitor them. At a consistent time usually at Noon on Thursday (ie. Today was their feeding day)

From my own experience, I am one of the very few who feed their BP's the first scheduled feeding. I've never really waited a whole week. I believe if you get them in a top notch environment with the correct settings, that they will feed for you regardless. I have three BP's, and two of them I fed within a day of owning it. The first one, I actually put it through a week of settlement. But the other two girls, they fed one day after I got them (only because I happened to get them on Wednesday)

In regards to switching to F/T. Many will tell you to go from live, to pre-killed (don't get let down if they don't eat for you), and then finally frozen thawed. Just make sure you F/T them properly. I've tried several times, and over-cooked my mice. So I just resort to feeding live the way the bp's were raised prior to my owning them.

Hope that helps