Not prepared for the noise!!!

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Originally Posted by andy6432668

I hate rodents I love to watch my snake strike and kill them even if they scream then shallow them.

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:colbert: No wonder why people have a bad image of snake owners

I had a really bad experience several weeks ago.

My male has not been eating, which was somewhat expected because of the time of year, but I always offer him food anyway. At first, he seemed interested in the rat, stalking it. After about 10 minutes, I realized this was going nowhere, and I had an indifferent snake and a very scared rat on my hands. I moved him into my girl's tub. She was in shed, but had never seemed to mind eating while in shed. She struck the rat on the head and coiled, but when the rat started clawing at her and struggling, she freaked out and let it go. So here is this rat, bleeding from the head and eye, in total shock. I have already fed the rest of the snakes. I cannot possibly keep this thing for a week till the next feeding in the condition it's in. I honestly just want it to die and put it out of its misery. It's been scared to death, struck, and half-suffocated. I'm sobbing because I feel so bad for it. I put the rat in my boa's tub because I know he won't turn down food. When I heard him take hold I was so relieved.

Until this had happened, I thought I had gotten over my feelings of remorse towards feeding. I guess I'm never going to lose all of that, completely.

darkangel: Yes, I had this very same thing happen to me. My JCP was in shed and wasn't interested in eating at all. But, he laid into it really good three times. I removed the rat and put him in a container and over the next few days he developed several big absesses. I nursed him back to health over the next two weeks - and then fed him to my JCP. :confused: I have to say it was a tough situation and there were many soul searching sessions over those two weeks. There was really no solution that didn't have a down side to it.

In answer to the O.P.: Yes I do feel sorry for the prey, and the louder and longer it goes on, the sorrier I feel. But, its just something that I deal with. I don't believe in hiding away from these things. I eat meat and I see it as a point of pride that I'm perfectly capable of witnessing and/or performing all of the tasks involved in going from the live animal to the prepared meal. (and I have done so).

My experience is that larger prey items make more noise. Also, mice are the quietest, rats are next, and fowl is the worst. It takes some serious resolve to feed live chicks.

I have compassion for all animals, feeder or not. I actually became vegan about a month ago.

While I do feel compassion for the feeders, I do understand that nature must take its course. Some animals require the flesh of other animals to survive and if I want my babies to grow up big and strong, then they get nice plump mice for dinner. I do feed live to the bps and I do hate hearing them squeak but once again, it is natures way.

I will probably end up becoming attached to the breeders but that is all. I do not put the feeders into the mental category of pets. To me they are food for my snakes and thats it. I end up finishing the feeding with no bad feelings because of it.

I always feel kinda bad for the live rodents that I feed ( I used to feed mice, now I'm up to rats). There was one week that the only feeder I could find was just a tad bigger than I would have liked to have fed. He definately squealed louder than the others do, and I felt so bad.

But I don't feel bad enough to not feed my snake. The rodents really are cute, but they were intended to be food, and they will be. I'm assuming I would get attached to breeders, but the one breeder that we have had for long enough to get attached to is meaner than snot! I wouldn't mind feeding her off if she wasn't too big...but it doesn't mean I want her to suffer.

On the issue of f/t....I can't do it. Kasi picked up a f/t rat this week for her big girl b/c there wasn't any live rats that were the right size. Her girl wouldn't eat it, and since my Lilly is generally a pig, I tried to feed it to her. She wouldn't eat it, and doing the "zombie mouse dance" with the poor limp rat really grossed me out....I can deal with blood and gore so much better than I could deal with messing with that thawed rat. I don't really know why, but I would really rather not ever deal with that again! :P Me grossing out while my snake pretended to stalk the rat gave Kasi a good laugh though!

Got my three girls yesterday to start on rat pups from mice. Definately is a difference in noise, mice never made a noise and the pups were screeching for a few seconds. I plan on doing f/t but I was not successful in my first two attempts at f/t rat pups.

Wow; after reading everyone's replies, I feel so indifferent. Feeding live has never bothered me in the least. I make sure that my feeders have a good life while they are being raised up to feed, and then into the tub they go.

I personally hope I never have to feed live. Dakota has eaten f/t since we got him...and never seems to waiver. The only time I had to pick it up and dance it was when I tried to feed him on a paper towel after reading that I shouldn't feed him on substrate! He hated that paper towel - or couldn't see the creature, I'm not sure which. Anyway - I'd probably attach immediately to a live feeder and would only do it if I thought Dakota was gonna die without it.

I love feeding our boa Seren pinkies and fuzzies. . .its so exciting seeing her strike it and wrap around it even though when we first started feeding her I had to wack the mice in the head and knock them out (My fear of her getting hurt, not her fear) and it was pretty cool but freaked my kids out @ the same time, lol.


I prefer live over frozen. . .just because!

Hmm, I never minded feeding Nagini live mice, and I don't think she would take anything but live. She seems to hunt by movement. Anyway, I kind of enjoy watching her zero in on the mouse and snatch it up in her coils when I lower it in.

FT, PK or live, I don't mind any method. I even have three mice here that have become pets, and I still have no qualms feeding mice...but I do mind feeding rats, which is why all three snakes are on mice and probably always will be. I've heard that scream at the reptile store I frequent, and its not a pretty sound, but that's not why I won't do rats. It's not even my love for rats, since I was 'conditioned' at the zoo to tell food from pet with no gray areas. The reason I won't feed rats is because whereas mice just scrabble around trying to get away, rats scratch and struggle trying to fight. Yes, I offer live food with the tail in tongs...but I know the agility and tenacity of rats and I would not want myself or especially my dear snake to be injured. I know it will mean giving her three or four adult mice per feeding when she's an adult, but that's ok since I'm trying to breed them. :)