New BP owner here!!

Thanks for all the good advice everyone. It is most appreciated. Shahrazad and I have been bonding. I handled him for about 30 minutes last night and he couldn't have been a more perfect gentleman and at the end, he didn't even want to go back in his cage.

I am going to keep on with the live food though. It just seems more natural to me and as long as he stikes first, I don't really see a problem, but I will watch him closely. I am asking him to be the best BP he can be and I just feel that includes trusting him to do what hundred million years of evolution has trained him to do.

He is a sweetheart and I have already fallen in love with him. Pics will be coming soon.

Rachel

First off, welcome to the forums! I Own a baby bp that I bought back in early July at the reptile and exotic animal show, he is about 18in long and is feeding happily on mice. His name is Monty (how original):rolleyes: . As a matter of a fact he is in my lap now as I type. Im from South Carolina. I also own 2 adult leos, Ceasar and Cleo and have 2 new leos coming by mail from California. Bought them little buggers from Herp-titude.com. One is a hypo tangerine and one is a Super hypo tangerine. Again Welcome to the forums and I'm sure you will enjoy it ( I am.)

Rachel you do what you feel most comfortable to do and what works with your snake. Adam is the first one to say that live feeding, done responsibly, is a fine method of feeding...so is frozen/thawed...so is pre-killed.

The nice thing about this forum is there are just as many who feed each method as well as those that feed mice and those that feed rats so you are bound to get some decent advice from someone (and yes sometimes a bit of controversy but that's expected when people are passionate about their love of royals).

I'm glad you and so many are finding this forum so valuable. My family loves this forum and it's often our first resource when questions arise or we just want to brag on our girlies (most of our friends think we are nuts!) It's also a huge part of the reason we have happy, healthy snakes and we are so comfortable with them. Go BP.net! Go!

~~Jo~~

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Originally Posted by RWillinnable

I am going to keep on with the live food though. It just seems more natural to me and as long as he stikes first, I don't really see a problem, but I will watch him closely.

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that is exactly what i think, but let me give you some tips on what i do. hold the rat using some sort of tongs or something like that(you can use your hand but dont be suprised one of these days if he gets you) by his tail in front of your snake and let the snake get the first shot at the rat.

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Originally Posted by mr~python

that is exactly what i think, but let me give you some tips on what i do. hold the rat using some sort of tongs or something like that(you can use your hand but dont be suprised one of these days if he gets you) by his tail in front of your snake and let the snake get the first shot at the rat.

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I would not recommend holding any LIVE prey items with tongs or your hand while feeding. Basically this gets the rodent 'angry and prepared to fight'...not to mention it really stresses the rodent. It is better just to place the live food item in the enclosure. Also, you should not hold a live rat by its tail with tongs...the skin on a rat's tail is very thin and can easily be torn. Please do not do that with live rodents....it is not nice :)

sorry, i didnt know i was doing anything wrong.

Glad to let you know then.....thats what this forum is all about :D

yeah im glad too

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Originally Posted by jglass38

A new owner isnt a big breeder and certainly doesn't have the experience necessary to do it safely.

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Sorry Jamie, but we're going to have agree to disagree there ... I think that people (even new owners) should feed what their snakes will eat, and what is most convenient for them as a keeper ... live, F/T, P/K, etc. If someone doesn't have common sense enough to be able to safely feed live food, then there are tons of other ways that they can also potentially hurt their animal through bad and negligent husbandry. I know many many people that are not big breeders and do not have tons of experience that feed their ball pythons live food without problems every single week.

What and how anyone feeds their animal(s) is a personal decision and just like many other personal decisions that people make for themselves or their families (religion, type of car, choice of schooling, hairstyle, etc) while I may not agree, I certainly don't feel it's my place to tell them that they should change it. All I can do when it comes to snakes is offer my help to make sure whatever they decide works out well for them and their animals.

And that's just my opinion. ;) :D

-adam

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Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

Sorry Jamie, but we're going to have agree to disagree there ... I think that people (even new owners) should feed what their snakes will eat, and what is most convenient for them as a keeper ... live, F/T, P/K, etc. If someone doesn't have common sense enough to be able to safely feed live food, then there are tons of other ways that they can also potentially hurt their animal through bad and negligent husbandry. I know many many people that are not big breeders and do not have tons of experience that feed their ball pythons live food without problems every single week.

What and how anyone feeds their animal(s) is a personal decision and just like many other personal decisions that people make for themselves or their families (religion, type of car, choice of schooling, hairstyle, etc) while I may not agree, I certainly don't feel it's my place to tell them that they should change it. All I can do when it comes to snakes is offer my help to make sure whatever they decide works out well for them and their animals.

And that's just my opinion. ;) :D

-adam

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Well put and we don't have to agree on everything! :)

I certainly can't make decisions for everyone. My decision is to feed FT whenever possible. When (hopefully) I run an operation as big as yours, my feelings might change. Who knows!