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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed F/T every 7 days (every 5 when they are under 300 grams).
As for the whole hunt...strike....constrict...eat thing, I try to invoke a strong feeding response by pre-scenting and dancing the mice around the cage as though they were alive. Then when the snake strikes the prey, I wiggle it with tongs to mimic a live mouse squirming and struggling to get away. I find this works very well. They usually "kill" the mice for a good 10 minutes before trying to eat it.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed live, but if I don't get a strong response I will offer pre-kill. If they don't take the pre-kill within a short amount of time I will then freeze the rat, because 2 of my snakes will eat f/t and live.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Honestly, i bought the snake in the first place for my enjoyment. I fed it for the first time with a small live mouse. Now he has a cut. I might move to frozen if he doesn't get over it soon.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Once a week, though we do not bother feeding anyone that is about to shed.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
We feed hatchlings twice a week, til they are a decent size, then once a week, larger prey items.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
When my two royals were babies i used to feed them on average a fluff every 5 days , then went on to a small mouse every 7 days and gradualy increased there size of prey as and when needed.
Now there adults my female is about 1800g and the male just over 1200g i feed them either a large weaner rat or a small adult rat every 14 days, they both strike feed and there appetite is just pure greed lol :gj:
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
My bp was on a 7 day schedule at the pet store but I've bumped him up to a 6 day for now. He's about 2 feet long and ways 156g.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
My ball is almost a year old and when I first got him as a hatchling I fed him about once every 5 days. I feed only pre-killed mice to my snakes. Now I feed him 2 adult mice once a week, sometimes he only eats one (rarely). When he's in shed I don't feed him and depending on his shed length and when he ate last, I will up it to 3 mice if he is hungry enough. I use tongs to "dance" the mice like they are alive, but he will eat them even if I don't. When I first got him, feeding him dead was a problem because he was used to only eating live, but he is over it now, though he still "kills" the dead mouse for a good 10-20 minutes.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
All of mine are fed freshly killed rats on a weekly basis. That's just the way it works out with my rat vendor because he's in town on a weekly basis and I don't like housing rodents. I don't like storing rats in the freezer and then thawing them out, either. I buy live, euthanize, then feed everyone on Wednesdays. I don't like feeding live because I sympathize with the rats and also worry about any injuries they could inflict on my snakes. I prefer to dispatch them, myself, then offer them to the snake. I had worried in the beginning that the snakes would become sedentary if not offered live, but that's definitely not the case. Mine still strike and constrict their f/k feeders as if they were live and have done so for nearly a decade now.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I voted "every 7 days" but add the caveat that every once in a while I will skip a week with snakes that don't go off feed for extended periods. These snakes evolved to go without feeding from time to time and I believe (based on my experience) that it helps to keep them fit. As an analogy consider that with humans, which evolved to be foragers, it is healthier to eat six small meals than it is to eat three large meals. It boosts our metabolism and keeps us trim.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I have had my bp since March of 09 and he was a great eater unless he was shedding. But recently he has stopped eating which happens to coincide with it getting cooler here in Pa. I have changed nothing in his routine ie cage temps which are at 92 in the day and 80 at night he is in a 40 gal tank. My question is why has he stopped eating when nothing has changed? Did I do something wrong or is this an internal clock that tells him to hybernate?
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
What's his weight? How old is he?
The answers to these two questions are necessary before anyone can even begin to speculate. You should probably start a NEW post, not tag your question onto the end of this one.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Hey Robin, Is there someplace that you learned how to start raising your own Rats for feed. Im up to 7 BP's .. not sure if i want to get into that . But i would like to read up on it..
How did you get started doing that? and any errors in doing it?
Scub.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
every monday. with the exception of the 3 baby corns, and the teeny tiny hatchling het. pied female. they get fed every 5 days.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I thaw just a few rats every now and then and offer them to all of them starting with the fussiest first. If they get taken by the fussiest feeders then i either thaw a few more to give to the "guarunteed" feeders or wait a few days. I don't really have a feeding schedule as such, i just feed them when they are hungry :D
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by SoCaliSon
To answer the thread question I feed every Friday... and they eat readily.
To put in my two cents about the Live vs. F/T...
I am not going to knock anyones tried and true methods of feeding... It is your choice on how you want to feed the snake. This is only my opinion ... I personally feed Stunned Live. I think the only reason F/T exists is for the conveniece of the human and not for the benefit of the snake. I am going to to split this into a couple key points.
1. Nature designed our snakes to hunt and kill live prey. Snakes are not scavengers. Maybe it happens but I have never heard of a wild snake ingesting something that was dead when they found it. It is one of my snakes primal intinctual behaviors to find that warm little animal... attack, constrict them and swallow them. I personally think it is borderline cruel to keep a captive snake and neglect them of this behavior. When a snake stops contricting before it eats... That is sad, as it is just loosing touch with it's natural behaviors.
This is my Favorite point to make on this issue...
What if we forced you to eat Mushed up food through a straw for the rest of your life because there was a danger of you chipping a tooth on a bone. No more chewing cause it's dangerous... Even though that is what we have our teeth for! Eventually our jaw muscles would turn incredibly weak. Then if we ever wanted to use our teeth again they would be almost useless becasue your jaws muscles are worthless. A snake contricting it's food is like us chewing... It's how they were designed to do it. Don't neglect them of chewing their food!
You are forcing your snake to feed in an unnatural way until that is all he used to. Not Good. It is extremely rare for a snake to take F/T on the first try because snakes are not built to recognize dead things as prey... I hate saying it like this but sadly this is what happens... The owner decides F/T is the more convenient way to go (You can easily feed a freshly killed or stunned mouse to the snake... Why crappy frozen stuff???... Becasue it's convenient for YOU)... Then they start trying to feed F/T and most of the time the only way to get a snake to take it is to let it starve until it decides that it will take the F/T. I know "Starve" sounds bad; But a natural predator is only going to take a dead prey item if it is tricked to think that it is alive, or is starving and takes it as a last resort.
1st bold marK: Actually, snakes do eat carrion (deceased animals) they find in the wild. According to Chris Mattison's book The New Encyclopedia of Snakes:
"In the past, there was a widely held view that snakes rarely if ever ate carrion."
"Recent observations have changed this view to some extent. There are several reported observations of snakes eating carrion. A large prairie rattlesnake was seen eating a dead cottontail rabbit, for instance. The rabbit had been dead for over one day, as maggots and carrion beetles were present ont he carcass and the snake took one and a half hours to consume the rabbit, due to rigor mortis. Other instances include a cottonmouth, Agkistrodon piscivorus, that ate a dead water snake, Nerodia erythrogaster, and another cottonmouth that was seen to scavenge around the nests of sea birds, searching for spilled fish. Venomous snakes may be more disposed to take dead prey than other snakes because their hunting method involves killing and releasing prey, after which they track it down and eat it some time later. The process of finding such prey may take several hours, by which time the body will be well and truly dead.
"Non-venomous snakes may also take carrion. A specimen of the West Indian ground snake Alsophis portoriciensus richardi from Congo Cay, Puerto Rico, was watched by Norton as it found and ate dehydrated fish dropped by brown pelicans while feeding their chicks. The snake appeared to be actively searching in areas where spilled fish may have become lodged. Yet another example concerns a ribbon snake, Thamnophis sauritus, which was watched as it tried to peel a squashed toad froma tarmac road, while Beford watched an Australian colubrid, the keelback, Tropidonophis mairii, taking road-killed frogs from road surfaces on more than one occasion.
"These casual observations seem to indicate that snakes are not adverse to eating carrion when the opportunity arises. They are, of course, in competition with scavenging birds and mammals and are, by comparison, poorly equipped to find such prey first.
"In captivity, most snakes can be encouraged to eat freshly killed prey animals. Many will also eat food that has been frozen and thawed out and a number seem to prefer food that has been ;eft in their cage for several hours and has become 'high'. Observations on captives snakes should be regarded as suspicious [in terms of wild snake behavior] but, nevertheless, they do demonstrate the flexibility of feeding behaviour."
2nd bold mark: What difference does it make if the snake is not eating in a "natural" way? Do you think glass cages, stackable cages, and plastic tubs filled with aspen, newspaper, paper towels, reptibark or other substrates are considered "natural" to the snake? If we choose to keep and learn about these interesting animals, there is no possible way that we are going to be able to give them a 100% natural environment. We can replicate it to the best of our abilities and will still be way off.
Use whatever works best for you. If that's frozen/thawed, that's fine. If it's live, then watch your snake to be sure you don't have a problem, and that's fine too. But don't factor "natural" into the equation, because there's nothing "natural" about a ball python in captivity.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Just once a week, usually around mon, tues or wed.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by rabernet
Can you point me to a study that says that live is healthier and more exciting for the snake than f/t? The fact that there are thousands of animals feed f/t that are thriving in collections around the world is proof enough that f/t is no less healthy than feeding live.
I am impressed with my snakes and the fact that they are perfectly designed to dispatch their prey - but if entertainment value is the reason to choose to feed live, the keeper might want to re-think their reason for having a snake.
7dayz is wut I voted. I agree wit my friend sorry robin but I never saw or read a ball python eating a thawed out rat or mouse in the wild lmao.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed my guy every Thursday around 8pm and he's only ever skipped one meal. He's almost 8months now and is already bigger than my brother in laws 3 year old python. However he only feeds twice a month. I try to tell him to move to weekly but what can you do?
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FireproofGorilla
I feed f/t. The python tends to be less aggressive and it's safer for the snake. She doesn't even constrict, she knows what she's getting and she's greatful for it. F/t is more humane. Feeding live also gives us herps a bad rep with the general public. When the public starts getting scared, they start proposing bans. You really should rethink your purpose for owning a snake if you got it for the entertainment value. A starving dog could eat a cat and get plenty of nutrition that way, but are you going to stop feeding it dog food? No, b/c no one should be entertained by a creature getting slaughtered.
It really isnt more human. I think I would rather have the air squeezed out of me then slowly freeze to death. :(
I feed every 5-7 days depending on when my girl is hungry, and I feed live because i breed live mice. If my snake was an aggressive one, I would switch to ft just because it is supposed to make them less aggressive.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed all my snakes an appropriately sized f/t food item every five days. To continue the f/t versus live conversation (though I'm not sure if any of the following will be new), there are a couple reasons why I convert all my animals to f/t. The obvious main reason is for the safety of my snakes. I feed live when necessary, especially during the conversion period, but I've had a minor bite or two with some of my more inexperienced and younger snakes who don't strike and constrict properly. My heart can't take helplessly watching a mouse sink an incisor into the side of one of my animals, haha. Another reason is that, because of the previously mentioned incidences, when I do feed live, I stun my prey. Not only do I not like doing this, for obvious reasons of it seeming inhumane, but I also absolutely hate stunning/killing an animal only to have a snake refuse the meal for that week, and not have another snake to take it. I know having a frozen and thawed rat passed on equates just as much to an animal giving its life for waste, but somehow it seems so much more wasteful and disheartening to throw away a freshly killed mouse that was otherwise happy doing its rodent thing moments ago. I'm not at all squeamish about the predator-prey relationship, and I have absolutely no issues feeding live prey for ethical reasons (i.e. I don't find the act at all cruel for either party), but again, the potential waste factor of dispatching an animal and not having it eaten gets to me sometimes. Anywho, just my little input here. I'm very happy to see everyone putting so much thought into the well being of their animals though, it's very encouraging!
Cheers,
-Matt
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed two live rats every week
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Depends... Cu gets two small rats or one med. rat every 2 weeks, Prospekt gets 2 mice or 1 sm. rat. The boa gets a mouse every other week and the blood gets a small/med rat every month.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed my ball python one f/t adult mouse every 7 days, and I'm going to try and switch him over to one F/t rat pup every 7 days pretty soon.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed every 5 to 7 days. I feed F/T. I think it's funny that someone thinks that a snake won't take F/T the first time. My snake has eaten 10 F/T rats over his lifetime and he's almost 5 months old. In fact, according to his iHerp page, his FIRST meal after his first shed was F/T. Apparently, my snake recognized a F/T rat as food. And he continues to. I think you have to do what works for you. If I had a pet store 5 min from my house, I might do live. As it is, the pet store is 30 min from my house and to drive there every week is a little of a pain as I have a job and 3 children. So I buy a bunch at a time and freeze them. It works out better for me bc I'm not wasting all that gas and I don't have to worry if my $ runs a little low one week bc suppers in the freezer!
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed every seven days one small/med f/t rat. To also further the live/frozen debate, I can personally attest to live being able to harm your bp. I was recently at a pet store handling their adult female, and I asked what all the imperfections were with her scales. I was told, quite cheerfully, I might add, that occasionally the rat gets nippy. I know the chances are lowered dramatically if you stun them, or heck, if you prekill them the chances dissappear, but why would you take the chance? I mean, I can understand if you believe it's healthier to eat fresh prey, and more power to you, but please, please take the precautions. I don't like seeing or hearing about rat bites. They do happen, atleast with negligent people. Sigh.... I think it MIGHT be snake rescue time. Or atleast time to talk to them about it. Something.
Sorry. My little :rage: moment.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by 51-50 Python
i dont know why poeple even give it frozen food at all i guess some people are scared the mouse or rat will damage the snake but ive never had that problem and ive had my ball for 5 months
Many people say they carry less parasites and diseases if frozen and then also can't damage the snake. My understanding was that some viruses can mutate when introduced from a cooled temperature to a warmer one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by rabernet
Can you point me to a study that says that live is healthier and more exciting for the snake than f/t? The fact that there are thousands of animals feed f/t that are thriving in collections around the world is proof enough that f/t is no less healthy than feeding live.
Some people do stun feeding or freshly killed. Freezing prey removes many nutrients in my opinion, no, I haven't seen any tests on this but I wouldn't feed my bearded dragon frozen crickets, I wouldn't feed my tegu frozen turkey, nor my tarantula frozen crickets, why would I eat frozen spinach? It has less nutritional value than fresh. I can't use a meat item as an example since I'm a vegetarian. But you get my point. My understanding was many vitamins are removed from meat and proteins become weakened when in a frozen state and thawing it wont make any of that better. Many people will disagree on this and can send hate posts if they want. I really find it useless to argue about this point anyways. It's hard to say honestly...I haven't seen any nutritional value sheets for anything besides Bearded Dragons it's just my personal opinion. Plenty of snakes live off of f/t and so do many on live.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FireproofGorilla
F/t is more humane. Feeding live also gives us herps a bad rep with the general public. When the public starts getting scared, they start proposing bans. You really should rethink your purpose for owning a snake if you got it for the entertainment value. A starving dog could eat a cat and get plenty of nutrition that way, but are you going to stop feeding it dog food? No, b/c no one should be entertained by a creature getting slaughtered.
The bans are up because people are scared from the idiots who get snakes and release them or don't care for them properly, they're using large snakes a gateway simply because people get them, they don't want them anymore, they escape, or they never realized how large they would get and release them, which them scares the public. If those of us owning herps would make an effort to educate and reach out to the public maybe there wouldn't be such an issue. I go around to my public schools and bring snake, lizards, and so on to show the kids and educate them. I make public speeches and try to educate my community the best I can. Soon I hope to set up booths during the festivals here offering pamphlets, information, and so on. If I had a Burmese or Reticulated I could educate people about their size but large snake make me uncomfortable honestly. Rethink your purpose of owning a herp if you can't reach out and educate the public about herps disbar the myths are horrors.
Quote:
Originally Posted by FireproofGorilla
1. Nature designed us to hunt and kill animals to eat as well. How do you explain vegetarians? I agree that constricting is instinct, therefore, how could a snake forget or lose touch with it? Breathing, eating, and survival are all instincts. Have you forgotten how to do any of the above?
Quote:
Originally Posted by FireproofGorilla
I totally agree with the vegetarians dying off. You ever seen a vegetarian? They're all gaunt and yellow (Ron White reference, just a joke).
I can explain vegetarians because I am one, I lack the amino acids to digest high protein foods properly, I become sick and vomit. Thus, survival. Breathing is an unconscious reaction, our bodies cannot forget how to breathe unless our brains are harmed, eating is a subconscious reaction, people can forget to eat. And I don't eat frozen foods, or canned food for that matter. I eat three meals a day and three snacks a day, maintain a moderate weight, eat many fresh fruits and vegetables, cook most of my own meals, and exercise quite often. So some people shouldn't live because of certain values and ethical beliefs or that their bodies lack certain things? And that isn't inhumane to say some people don't deserve to live? Oh and I have no canines to bite into meat like most people. Vegetarians who think they're doing the world a favor by not eating meat or using animal products are idiots. And I love things like sushi, frog legs, and eggs that are runny in the middle but more than a couple bites makes me sick. Vegetarians get proteins by a mixture of proper proteins with carbohydrates. Starches come from fatty foods, just because we don't eat high protein foods doesn't mean we can't get starches from things like carbohydrates. Fat is in most food. Grains are high in starches which are also high in carbohydrates, carbohydrates carry 4 calories per gram, one gram of protein has 4, and one gram of fat has 9 calories. There are also sugar starches, too. Any intelligent vegetarian that knows about nutrition and diet management can be healthy, on the other hand many become a vegetarian because it's a trend or some other retarded reason.
Quote:
Originally Posted by mikeamy2007
i tend to agree with you on this point. my female wont eat unless i leave the room lol. She will literally constrict , and then stare at me until i leave, even if im across the room !!!!!!!!!
Lol, our little ball, Jumbo is just like that. if he sees a human anywhere he will drop the food and go hide instead, the key is to watch him strike, leave, come back, and make sure he's eating fine, then leave and later check for any physical issues.
I find it amazing how well snakes can dispose of their prey and it's a great experience when there's live prey available but I don't believe live prey should be offered purely or mainly for our entertainment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by WingedWolfPsion
(The albinos are particularly bad about it, and I have to balance offering them unconscious prey--which the female wants to turn her nose up at, since it doesn't move--and getting the betadine ready if the rodent isn't out of it enough, and bites).
I've heard albinos can't see movement as well as normals...I'm more curious if that's true or not than anything.
Quote:
Originally Posted by AmandaRisher
I think I would rather have the air squeezed out of me then slowly freeze to death. :(
Most freeze chambers will kill within seconds, so it's really not that bad.
Live prey offers the natural hunting instincts. I do live feeding and always watch the feeding process up until they get the food inside their mouth, then usually leave them to eat in peace. I've had one ball bit once but I've been keeping an eye on the wound, never had a repeat, the ball learned from his mistake and always gets a good grip on the side on their head and wraps so their feet and held against their bodies. And I do have a local herp vet if anything goes awry and another 30 miles away, another 20 miles away, and another 90 miles away in case I can't use my local one.
My snakes all have their own feeding schedules, I offer them all food at least once a week and monitor the live prey to make sure no mishaps happen. Our little Jumbo eats once a week, Cynric would eat every couple days if I offered it so I offer him food twice a week at an even interval of days (usually Tuesday nights and Friday afternoons), Deja eats once every two weeks.
Cynric refuses f/t or freshly killed anyways, Jumbo I guess was force fed by his breeder so we're trying to change that, he refuses freshly killed too and f/t but I'm finding it hard to locate mice of the proper size for him that aren't so I've started breeding some mice.
And Deja, even though she's 5 feet long refuses rats and will ONLY eat mice...odd, but mice are cheaper and easier to keep, they're less likely to hurt a snake of her size too, not to mention they aren't as predisposed to carry mycoplasma which I still worry may be transferable to snakes. Thinking about using gerbils instead for her.
I haven't weighed any of my snakes, I know Jumbo looks a little small not unhealthy but he could be more round in the middle, Deja looks pretty healthy even though she eats not as often, then Cynric always looks round and contented. I've tried feeding a baby rat that was killed by the mama knocking over the water dish, every snake refused, it's not natural to them, they would come up and nose it but it's almost as if they didn't understand what to do with it.
The matter is we all believe our opinion is right or are afraid to admit to being wrong...it seems most people do week feedings with live prey.
But I do happen to feel so much better now about doing live feedings...many boa owners do f/t feedings, I just don't understand why. Live feedings shouldn't cause any problem when monitored and such.
I personally prefer raising my own feeders but all my rats have mycoplasma, and thus I refuse to feed them to any of my snake, I'd like to know if it's transferable between snakes and rats but no one will ever give me straight answers about it.
Look! I wrote a book!
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
When dealing with baby balls it all depends on their feeding response. I monitor each snake behavior for the first few feedings to get an idea of it's temperment. An agressive snake I feed after a poop or shrink in bulge of previous meal, 3-5 days. A snake that shy's away from prey I give longer breaks in between meals till it gets very curious in it's encloser and gives an agressive response when food is entered. I feed all my snake in their enclosers to build confidence. I rather a nippy healthy eater then a shy picky eater. Much easier to tame a snake down for handling then to getting a shy stressed snake to feed aggressively.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I've always fed my snakes live prey for the simple reason that nature intended it that way. Heaven forbid one of my snakes get loose to nature and be used to feeding on dead rodents. I know that if one of my pets get reintroduced to nature it may have a chance to thrive by feeding on live prey. I feel that giving dead prey is parallel to having a feline declawed (wrong). Many people disagree and may say that they dont need to hunt but I believe that good husbandry includes conditioning to as similar to nature as possible and not to your convenience.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
i'll read through the rest of this thread later, but heres my info:
I feed every 6-10 days, the time frame depends on a few things:
- my schedule
- temperature in my apartment
- last feeding
- who ate last time food was offered
My adults go off feed seasonally so i offer them food less often when its cold, and give them longer to digest when they do. (so they eat every 7-14 days in the winter).
My babies are offered every 6-8 days. If someone is a little thin or wont take more than one item per feeding they get fed every 5 days.
When its warm, i'll feed more frequently. I generally feed smaller than normal prey items because i feed a bit more frequently (even my adult animals, in the summer/spring will be offered food every 5-7 days).
I feed F/T although i have fed live on a few occasions. I feed F/T because
1. all of my animals will accept F/T rats or mice without hesitation when they are eating.
2. i know how to properly thaw and warm frozen prey to make it apetizing for my snakes.
3. it is convenient for me.
To FireproofGorilla, I have a question.. What happens when you feed a snake a live prey item and it doesn't constrict? I have witnessed this first hand and it is one of the reasons i don't like to feed live. If my animals can dispatch a prey item quickly so it dosen't suffer that is fine, but if they swallow it alive without killing it first its cruel to me and dangerous for my animal. I listened to that mouse scream and squeak until it suffocated. Not very efficient if you ask me. And this is an animal, that when she is feeding, has an incredible feeding response 99% of the time.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vilenica
I've always fed my snakes live prey for the simple reason that nature intended it that way. Heaven forbid one of my snakes get loose to nature and be used to feeding on dead rodents. I know that if one of my pets get reintroduced to nature it may have a chance to thrive by feeding on live prey. I feel that giving dead prey is parallel to having a feline declawed (wrong). Many people disagree and may say that they dont need to hunt but I believe that good husbandry includes conditioning to as similar to nature as possible and not to your convenience.
I can almost guarantee you that if your snake got out it would recognize a live rodent as prey. Remember snakes are mainly instinctual animals. They aren't like some other types of pets that wouldn't know how to find food if they got loose. Besides that, most climates are not ideal for bp's and it probably would die from getting too cold before it died from not eating.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
My adult normal guy gets food every 14 days and maintains the perfect weight, otherwise he gets too fat. :rolleyes:
Everyone else so far is on a 7 day schedule.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
So, my BP the first time taking a rat pounced the whole hide over the rat before i was ready to wiggle it infront of his hide... reasonably so since the owner couldn't remember the last time he fed him. I was impressed that he took a rat within the first week of being with me, all the moving and the tank changes I had to make.
But since then he kinda gnaws at the rat for a while, tosses it around and then eats it. No hunting. Just kinda sniffs it and plays. So it's a bad thing?
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
Quote:
Originally Posted by jenn
i'm going to have to agree with robin. I feed live, but not for my entertainment. In fact, once i'm sure everything's ok, i shut the lights off and let my snakes eat in privacy.
i make sure i watch my snakes until the rodent is dead. Just to make sure they dont harm my snake
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I feed every 7 to 10 days.:8:
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
my bp hasnt eaten yet=[ so i couldnt vote!
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
once a week off breeding season unless i have a girl im trying to get a lil heavier and twice a week during breeding season. 3 days in 3 days out with a male\female if they eat while on break awesome so that works out to 2 days a week as well.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
1 adult mouse live every 7 days unless she is in the blue.. then I wait until after her shed is completely done. Today was feeding day and she actually had a problem. She struck & missed first then on her second atempt this fiesty mouse broke free from her grip. I don't think her mouth grabbed it and it slid out of her coils. She then spent the next hour or so just stalking the mouse but refused to strike again. She seemed very hesitent. I think the mouses movement freaked her out & she was afraid to miss again & got frustrated. I then took the mouse & turned into prekill (gased). I danced the mouse in front of her & she finally struck. She is now chowing down.
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
I hear that some people feed BPs under 500g every 3 days, isnt that too much?
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Re: How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?
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Not sure why this jumped up to the top when there hasn't been a post in 5 months, but I'm curious about the 3 days for under 500 grams question.
It seems like that would be power feeding to offer food that often wouldn't it?
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