I thought most breeders fed live? What do you feed?

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Originally Posted by Pwilliams58

Wow I didn't know so many of you guys fed live. I muuuch prefer F/T simply for easiness. I breed my own rats, when theyre up to size I gas 'em and freeze 'em. On feeding day, I just open up a bag from the freezer, dump desired amount into hot water, wait 10 minutes and feed. Haven't had a wasted prey item in quite some time. I have 17 bps that I feed frozen (rest are hatchlings getting live pups) but when I feed I don't thaw out 17 rats at once, I do it in groups of 5 or 6, then when those are gone I'll dump more in the water. I always save my most voracious eaters for last, because if I've got rats thawed out that no one else will eat, I know they will, so at MAX I would only ever waste 1 prey item in 1 feeding night. And that would be if one of the voracious eaters decided NOT to eat lol. I know I'm rambling and it sounds complicated, but to me it's easier than caring for 17 small's per week.

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I know what you mean.. it's hard to get rats or mice up to a breeding schedule for a different batch of sizes every week..

i only have 20 snakes, and i feed f/t EXCEPT one, he regurges f/t

i dono why....

but its easyer, and i dont have to worry about my snakes being hurt.

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Originally Posted by derrabe

Ok now im confused I was under the impress most people fed f/t for the simple reason they can hurt your snake. But this threat is saying completely different

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The thing with making choices about what type of prey to feed and what method of feeding to use is you need to understand it fully. That takes some time, some research and some experimentation. Once you've got it down and are comfortable with your choices and the snake(s) is accepting that prey type and that feeding method then it's all good. :)

We feed live except for those snakes that are going to homes where the new owner feeds f/t. For those snakes we transition them over to f/t before they leave to make sure they'll be all set for their new homes. :)

I think size(and even age) of prey has alot to do with safety. Most of my snakes get small rats that are completely overpowered by the snake so there is little risk . When I do feed a larger prey items like a medium or larger rat I do prekill because the teeth on those are way bigger and an older more mature animal has alot more fight and defensive behavior in him. Small and baby rats are like deer in the headlights and BAM. Mice are nasty little suckers and I dont use them at all.

I use to try the frozen thawed thing but the more snakes I get it's too much of a hassle. Live all the way! I have a lot of snakes that still take frozen thawed after eating live. This works out great because sometimes I need to freeze a bunch of rodents when production gets too high.

Live over here

I absolutely hate rodents -- but I gave whole "raising a small colony to feed my snakes" deal a shot and it sucked -- I didn't produce enough to have enough of the right size when I needed it, it was expensive and it was a whole bunch of animals I didn't like that I had to care for -- way more hassle and time consuming than the 10 minutes it takes to pull some frozen rodents out of the freezer, defrost and heat up prior to feeding.

I feed frozen to the ones that will take them. And live to my picky eaters.

both it just depends on the snake and its size

I feed nothing but frozen. Live is too expensive and only my babies getting started eat live. I just buy frozen in bulk and have 2 large freezers full of rats and rabbits. I used to breed my own rats and feed live but the time and energy spent cleaning and feeding as many rats as I would need isn't worth it to me if I can just feed everyone f/t. Especially working the hours I work, I usually don't even have the time it would take to clean the rats.