feeding live VS f/t

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Originally Posted by fish21

at the pet store i get all my stuff at. they have wild cought adult ball pythons, and most of them have small scars on them. i can only guess that is from feeding on live in the wild.

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The scars on adult wild caught ball pythons are generally from the tools that the trappers use to dig them out of thier burrows.

-adam

that makes sense adam.

i feed live but i have a female here that i got from a kid that also feed live and she has a few spots on her that are all better know but they were nasty bits i'll snap a pic

heres the pics of her back.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...3/DSCF1122.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...3/DSCF1121.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v7...3/DSCF1120.jpg

Wow, those are some brutal scars. Glad you were around to take care of her!

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Originally Posted by gncz73

i feed live but i have a female here that i got from a kid that also feed live and she has a few spots on her that are all better know but they were nasty bits i'll snap a pic

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LOL ... that kid didn't "feed live", he offered up his ball python as a sacrifice. ;)

There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything. :D

-adam

Sorry to have missed this thread earlier Aleesha. We feed live to all our snakes...ball pythons, boa (the big male BCI) and even the little milksnake though she will take either live or f/t and f/t pinkie mice are easier for me so that's what she normally gets.

Specifically as this is about boas, with Rauri the BCI (also when we pick up Severus the baby BCI) we feed live. A number of reasons went into our decision to do so and I think no matter what method you use you should know why you are choosing it and why it works best for you and for the particular snake, make sure you learn what you should about that feeding method...and then tell the rest of the world to quite simply bugger off. If it works and it's a generally accepted form of feeding...and again..it's working for you and for the snake...don't doubt yourself.

We feed live because we raise rats. I know exactly what goes into my rats, I know the quality and obviously, they are darned fresh LOL. They are extremely well fed and well hydrated and live a decent unstressed life, which ends quickly and humanely in a predator/prey dynamic that's gone on longer than we humans have been around to mess with it. We watch every snake to make sure they are aggressive eaters, no rat stays in with a snake that is obviously uninterested, no snake is offered a rat it cannot handle as far as size. We go with a theory that small is better when it comes to live and do offer some of our snakes more than one prey item per feeding night.

For Rauri who is 6 feet long and a very strong male BCI, he can easily handle 4 week old meat rabbits, very large guinea pigs or jumbo rats. He takes live very aggressively other than a slight hesitation with extremely large male rats. This may be from some past experience if a snake is able to retain that hunting memory or just his instinct to be cautious with that type of prey. We have had to on occasion pre-kill a rat for him if it was acting aggressively and he was not immediately dealing with it - the guinea pigs and rabbits of course pose no issue for him. To the point we have had no incident of prey biting any of our snakes but it could happen, that's part of the decision to feed live is knowing there is a slight chance even with the most responsible owner. For us it's all about minimizing risks but knowing you can never totally eliminate all risk to any creature from anything.

Sorry for the book length post, hope it gives you some idea of why for Mike and I live is the right choice. However, that being said, if we had a snake that had a poor strike response or would do better on f/t or p/k, that snake would have that offered with no problems. For us it will always come down to what is best for each particular snake, what we are most suited and capable of offering and what is most readily and consistently available in a superior quality prey item. If that's live, pre-killed, frozen/thawed...or a rat or a mouse...fine and dandy, it's all good if it's done right and you have a hard hitting snake that loves it's feeding night! :)

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

LOL ... that kid didn't "feed live", he offered up his ball python as a sacrifice. ;)

There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything. :D

-adam

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i agree and she moves and eat normally. which made me happy and the vet said she should still be able to breed but i don't know if i will

jo,

thank you so much for going in such detail about your choices... i agree with you 100% - it's really up to how the snake deals with it's prey and what's most readily available. one of my cornsnakes gets f/t - simply because the litter was starting to get too big... and needed to be set aside for future feedings... when i have the approp. size mouse available... he gets live.

gncz73, those photos make me sad. it looks like numerous bites... not just one single bite mark... poor snake :(

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

jo,

gncz73, those photos make me sad. it looks like numerous bites... not just one single bite mark... poor snake :(

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i did feel sorry for her at one time but not anymore as shes never mean and she eat and move and act just like a full body snake. yes it either was numerous bites or just way to big of prey for her when it happen i really don't know

A, You're asking about your hoggie, but for Wrigley, my RTB, I feed f/t. That's what the breeder was feeding when I bought Wrigley. He got a live mouse and a live rat pup a couple of times because I didn't have f/t at that time, but he's gone right back to f/t w/o any problems.


Kishnah gets f/t because they were easier. Now that she's eating nb rats I'll stick w/the f/t because I dont have any that size. When I had pinky mice, she actually ate one live w/o the constricting, so I don't want to take the chance she'd try to do that with larger prey and get hurt.

What few rats I've bred, they're the wrong size for the feeding I need to do. With the last litter too, I found it personally difficult to feed the rats live. Some of them have become pets.

P. Snake was eating a live mouse 2x/week when I got him in Dec. As he grew, I gradually got him to eat f/t rat pups. He then went on a hunger strike, so I shifted back to live mice. He's eaten that only once, and he's refused the live mouse again this last Sunday. I did notice when he ate last, the mouse tried to bite while coiled up, and as P. whent to eat, the mouse wasn't dead yet, so P had to coil around it again. It would be more convenient for me to feed live, but if they don't eat, then the prey gets too big. (That's how we ended up w/Scabbers, Peekaboo and Smudge rats as pets now.)

All the others have been taking f/t w/o any problems. Even Oreo now eats the f/t pinky w/o any reluctance. The first time I had to feed live (I had one avail) but now she'll eagerly eat the f/t.

As long as the snake is eating, do what works for YOU. For my schedule, thawing is a PITA and I don't have a lot of time for it, but it's better because I'll always have the correct sized prey for the snakes, and now that my collection is more than just an adult BP, everybody is taking all sorts of different sizes and I wouldn't be able to breed mice or rats correctly to always have the right size.

Hope this helps.

RuLyn :)

Just mice and rats???? What about for really big boas???? I been feeding my larger boas guinea pigs and small rabbits too! The 8ft boa would've given me a real funny look had I offered him mice..LOL!

hahahahaha sooo true.

:D

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Originally Posted by 4theSNAKElady

Just mice and rats???? What about for really big boas???? I been feeding my larger boas guinea pigs and small rabbits too! The 8ft boa would've given me a real funny look had I offered him mice..LOL!

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I don't wanna even know what Rauri would do if I offered him a mouse LOL He likes the rats well enough but I think his best feeding response seems to be with the baby meat bunnies. We are so lucky though (as Becky will find out shortly when he ships out to her) that Rauri is just not picky at all and will take any reasonable sized rat, GP or rabbit with pretty much equal zeal.

i wonder if they'd even bother to take the mouse or simply see it as nothing.

the previous owner of my 7 ft red tail said he fed him 3 large mice a week. ( it was all i could do not to laugh at him). now he gets a jumbo rat once a week and loves it.

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Originally Posted by 4theSNAKElady

Just mice and rats???? What about for really big boas???? I been feeding my larger boas guinea pigs and small rabbits too! The 8ft boa would've given me a real funny look had I offered him mice..LOL!

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If and when my newest lady gets that big, I'll be buying rabbits for her, but most all my snakes are still in the mice/small-med rat sized prey group. Rob did say that my newest BP took large rats, and he's quite the chunk. :D We'll see what happens Sunday on Feeding Day. :)

I thought rat's ruled guy's what's up with this poll? Well you guessed it I feed live rat's.

ya i noticed it was split pretty evenly... with live mice and f/t rats - weird eh?

We feed all of our snakes live prey items. The balls get appropriately sized rats, the boas get rats and the corn snakes get mice. We have always fed live, and have yet to have a snake get bit by a prey item. We have occasionally left a rat in with one of the balls overnight, accident, but normally, the rat chews through the hardware cloth on top of the tub and gets out. If I had Freedom Breeder style racks with metal tops, I think the outcome may be different. I do hate having to put a patch on the hardware cloth, so as a result, we pay closer attention at the end of feeding day.

My corn & rat snake both eat f/t hopper mice. My ball python is eating live small rats. I wish I could get him to eat pre killed, but he just wants nothing to do with them. Hopefully one day I'll be able to have him eating f/t rats!

I feed all my snakes f/t and that works great for me :) , but i agree with what has already been said before on this thread - if supervised theres nothing wrong at all with feeding live :sweeet:

I recomend dead food for boas only. They will almost always take dead prey and since a large rat could do some serious damage in the matter of seconds even if your watching, its not worth the risk IMO. Its not that hard to kill a rat or buy f/t. Its much cheaper to buy frozen rats and more convenient IMO to keep rats in the freezer and just thaw them when you need to feed.

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

i wonder if they'd even bother to take the mouse or simply see it as nothing.

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I fed Ruby an adult mouse when she was about 5' and.....Well I'll let the picture say the rest
http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL591.../157955808.jpg

i guess that pic speaks volumes :)

Aleesha,


Since Drake is going to eventually need LARGE prey (unless you REALLY want to feed him five++ mice at at time....?) and if you are willing to breed or BUY rats or rabbits, then live prey is just fine. You understand how to do it in a responsible manner so that Dexter is put at risk for injuries.

Cost-wise, it is actually cheaper for me to breed our own rats, but only up to about 5-6 week size. After that due to room constraints for grow-out, it becomes a convenience factor, and it's more convenient to buy & feed FT. With Hera eating a JUMBO! every week, it would take me forever to GROW one to that size, so I buy the FT.

Pissy went from live, to FT w/rats and mice back to live a few times, and I couldn't get him back on FT.

I fed the remaining live mice, because my females kept eating their litters, but the rats do okay for raising them to fuzzies. That helps the feeding budget.

With the latest baby, I don't have the right sized pinky mice, for my smaller snakes but all of my boas and the adult BPs are on FT rats. Zeus is on a fast, but when he did eat was a FT rat.

Just remember, as Drake grows, the prey will need to too, or you'll have to UP the QTY!! and that live is good as long as you meet his dietary needs and do it in a responsible (read supervised and safe) manner!!!!

:hug: RuLyn

Sheesh!!! :oops: :oops: How many times can the hoggie turn into a ball python???? Shure cant tell I was tiiiiired when I posted that, can ya?:oops:

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

that's it? 9 people is all that are going to share their experiences.

i really wanted to get a good well rounded set of opinions to assist me to make my decision on f/t or live -


anyone? :bolt:

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Hi all... I feed my boa F/T just because that was what he was on when I got him. My ball I feed live small rat but I am going to try and get him to switch because my wife won't let me keep live rats in the house and it is a pain to run to the store every feeding day. Will be my first try with him on F/T this weekend. Oh yeah... and frozen is cheaper!!

Peace!!

I feed my 2 boas whatever I have. Usually I will prekill them just to be safer, but they both take f/t. I have not run into any problems with live with any of my snakes. I have a good idea of what forum you are talking about but truth is, most of those pics posted are the worst case and an irresponsible owner leaving too large a rat in for days at a time. Boas feeding responses are usually better than that of balls, but there are always exceptions. No matter what I put in front on mine they take it within a few minutes.

Yes, I know which one too - and went back to read it only yesterday. Not only was a live rat just left in there, but from what I can make out it was A FEW live rats :eek: Snake was bit up really bad it was so sad.


Anyways, I live in the UK and it is illegal to feed anything but f/t here so we get no choice. I think I would still opt for f/t even if there was a choice though especially if using large rats.