Rats biting snakes

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Originally Posted by bx718

I've seen a guy on YouTube put the rat in a plastic bag and spin the bag to get the rat dizzy before placin it in the enclosure. Do you guys think that's a good method to prevent your snake from getting injured?

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No


You don't want to freak the rat out at all. You don't want to spin it, club it, smack it, talk trash to it, or anything that puts it into defensive mode before dropping it with your snake. You want it to be as clueless as possible. Ball pythons hunt by AMBUSH. You don't want the rat going in there thinking something is up.

I feed about 250+ rats a months been doing that for a good while, never had any injury necessitating any type of treatment or intervention on my part. No horror story to report!

Here are some important things to know

Feed an appropriate prey size
Remove the rodent after 15/20 min
Supervise feeding
Pre-scenting the room
Make sure the feeders are not stressed and are well hydrated and well fed (If you buy them from a store let them settle a bit and offer food and water before feeding them off)
etc

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Originally Posted by satomi325

FT isn't risk free either. Sure your snake won't get ugly bite wounds, but it still could result in a dead snake. Plenty of snakes have died on FT. Nothing is risk free. There are pros and cons to live and FT.
So feeding live or FT is just personal preference and being responsible about it.

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How can feeding f/t result in a dead snake? Perhaps the rat was sick? Or maybe the rodent is too big? But that's different than the risk of death by a bite. I'm just curious how it would be possible because I can't wrap my head around it lol :P.

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Originally Posted by h00blah

How can feeding f/t result in a dead snake? Perhaps the rat was sick? Or maybe the rodent is too big? But that's different than the risk of death by a bite. I'm just curious how it would be possible because I can't wrap my head around it lol :P.

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Improper thawing.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Improper thawing.

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:explosion

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Originally Posted by h00blah

:explosion

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Im on tapatalk so i have no clue what that means lol

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Originally Posted by h00blah

How can feeding f/t result in a dead snake? Perhaps the rat was sick? Or maybe the rodent is too big? But that's different than the risk of death by a bite. I'm just curious how it would be possible because I can't wrap my head around it lol :P.

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Like any method if not done properly it's not risk free, an improperly thawed rodent (in other words still partially frozen) will kill your snakes and trust me if someone is stupid enough to leave a rodent for days with a snake they would be stupid enough to feed something that was not properly thawed.

Feeding is about being knowledgeable, smart and responsible :thumbup:

And a little hijack

To those spinning rats to get them dizzy or thinking about doing so, or putting a rat in a bag and throwing it against the wall , those are the people that have no business feeding live and need to reevaluate their methods.

Live can be safe and also human as possible for the prey.

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Originally Posted by Mike41793

Im on tapatalk so i have no clue what that means lol

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Haha it's the emote where the happy little face tosses a grenade full of knowledge into the unsuspecting cloud's mouth, and the cloud explodes. AKA mind blown :gj:. At least that's how I interpret it haha.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

Like any method if not done properly it's not risk free, an improperly thawed rodent (in other words still partially frozen) will kill your snakes and trust me if someone is stupid enough to leave a rodent for days with a snake they would be stupid enough to feed something that was not properly thawed.

Feeding is about being knowledgeable, smart and responsible :thumbup:

And a little hijack

To those spinning rats to get them dizzy or thinking about doing so, or putting a rat in a bag and throwing it against the wall , those are the people that have no business feeding live and need to reevaluate their methods.

Live can be safe and also human as possible for the prey.

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:gj::gj:. Couldn't agree more.

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Originally Posted by h00blah

How can feeding f/t result in a dead snake? Perhaps the rat was sick? Or maybe the rodent is too big? But that's different than the risk of death by a bite. I'm just curious how it would be possible because I can't wrap my head around it lol :P.

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Yup. Exactly what Mike and Deborah explained.

A rat that's still frozen or the core is still frozen can kill a snake. It shocks their internal system, which is a pretty big deal for a cold blooded critter.

One example that comes to mind is a boa on here who died. The owner didn't thaw out the rats. They didn't know the rats had to be thawed.....

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

I kill rats by blunt force trauma. After reading all this i am going to come up with a new way of feeding my snakes. I think im going to go back to live feedings and apply all the safety measures required to feed properly.