snake got bit

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Originally Posted by djansen

What? :confused: not wanting scratches or bites on my snakes is a selfish reason? ok I used lav albino as a example but I dont know about you but I dont want any marks on ANY of my animals no matter their $ amount. and what do you mean it has nothing to do with the snakes health, in my book thats alot to do with the snakes health.

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Scratches and bite marks heal up within a few sheds. My corn had a few deformed scales from being gnawed on. Within two sheds, these scales were gone. To be honest, scars don't affect an animals health. Sale value, maybe.

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Originally Posted by PurplePython

A snake isn't like an autograph photo or some collectors item. It's an animal. I don't see why so many people treat their ball pythons like they have to be pampered. They are genetic killing machines. If snakes could talk, they'd want live prey not some frozen junk that's been dead for god knows how long :rolleyes:

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Ok there not a collectors item, but whats wrong with trying to provide the best life you can for them? and how do you know they want live? you ask them or are you assuming :rolleyes: personally when my snakes take a FT rat I dont think they really care or wish it was live (yes, i assume ;))

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Originally Posted by Raptor

Scratches and bite marks heal up within a few sheds. My corn had a few deformed scales from being gnawed on. Within two sheds, these scales were gone. To be honest, scars don't affect an animals health. Sale value, maybe.

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whats your point? sale value is a huge part of the game. and still would rather these scars were not there in the first place if I could have avoided it.

Im not really getting where some of you are coming from here.:confused:

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Originally Posted by djansen

Ok there not a collectors item, but whats wrong with trying to provide the best life you can for them? and how do you know they want live? you ask them or are you assuming :rolleyes: personally when my snakes take a FT rat I dont think they really care or wish it was live (yes, i assume ;))


whats your point? sale value is a huge part of the game. and still would rather these scars were not there in the first place if I could have avoided it.

Im not really getting where some of you are coming from here.:confused:

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lol Hey we all have our own ways of doing things I guess. Having little discussions like this are actually interesting to me to see everyone's way of doing things and their reasoning.

The main reason why I feed live is because I think its more natural to feed your BP a live mouse (like he eats in the wild) instead of some pre-killed frozen stuff.... I truely beleive it benefits your snake to have to kill its own prey instead of having some dead mouse that was previously frozen fed to it.

That is just my opinion though, and I am not saying I am right, but it truly seams like I am right because so many peoples reasons for not feeding live is "it's easier to buy a bag of frozen". To me, that just sounds like the owners are doing whats more convenient to THEM and not good for the SNAKE. But I may be wrong.

All I know is that if us humans were some other animals pets, we wouldn't want to be fed live prey.... since we are so used to eating cooked stuff that we already had killed. I just try to put myself in the snakes shoes and whenever I think like that, I always just feel like the snake appreciates live prey more than he would frozen because its just more natural and it's how it works in real nature.

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

Its not like we put the rats in the same container as the meat we use for food. :confused:

I double bag mine and put it on a side shelf in the freezer.


There is no right or wrong answer to the f/t vs. live conversation. One is not better then the other. If your snake only eats live, feed it live, if your snake only eats f/t, feed it f/t. If your snake will eat anything, then it is your choice.

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I know and I'd even put it in a different container. Its completely un rational, I know lol but it grosses me out lol. Someone said something about germs. It has nothing to do with that. its just gross lol.... If medusa wont eat live or fresh killed I'll try frozen but I'd rather not lol

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Originally Posted by djansen

ok, first off if its really bothering you then please dont feel the need to explain. I am not trying to convince you to feed FT but list why you think that there are any advantages to feeding live vs FT.

again you asked me at least twice to list my reasons

ugh...I feel like I have written this a thousand times....again this is my opinion

Pros-
1. it is easier for me...I do plan on getting many more BP's by the end of the year and eventually am planning to breed my own
Nice, I wish you luck. and with your setup it may workout for you. but raising mice does not sound easier then buying frozen in bulk.

well it certainly would be cheaper in the long run

2. I like going to the store to pick up feeders each week...it is fun for me to check out their new stuff....play with their tegu for a while...and talk to the owner about what she has seen around
well i personally dont like going to pet stores and lots of people dont have time to do this.

again that is personal choice


3. I think thawing mice is gross....I really don't want 10-15 soggy mice laying around while I wait for them to get the right temp.
I thaw them on a hot pad in my snake room so they are not soggy. And I think a tub of 50 live mice is gross but to each their own. And thawing for an hour beets having them all the time (breeding them)

Been there done that....and yes they are still soggy floppy gross things...and I have had one pop and ooze out...again that is my personal opinion


4. My 83 yr old Mom lives with us...and though she is hip to the snakes...she has opened the bag by accident grabbed one of the mice and freaked
i have another freezer for mine, or lable them and move them away from food. does she like live mice better?

actually she doesn't mind...

5. I personally think that live has better nutrients due to not being frozen. And I do not really know when this rodent was frozen. I have to rely on the person I bought it from to tell me that and hope they are being honest.
thats why you buy from a trusted person. do you trust the pet store owner you get live from? alot of petstores dont breed there own.

Why actually I have two places to buy from that I trust and yes...they do raise their own and I can go and hand pick them myself if I wish to...therefore I can see the environment, food, and cleanliness of the feeders

6. There have been tragedies feeding FT as well as live. The nails of the FT do not have the give that live does...therefore it has been known at times to cause internal injuries.
Im not saying this does not happen but i was not aware of this or heard any problems like this.

again things I have heard just like you have heard of horror stories with feeding live. I have heard a few stories of internal injuries due to hard nails. Again...does any of this happen all the time...no....just like snakes do not get bit all the time if you are on top of what you are doing. The only time my snake has been bit is when I first started feeding live and was not aware of what I was doing...again this was a nip that did not leave a mark.

7. It takes less time for me overall to do it this way and less messy. Get em...put em in the critter carrier...feed them off....clean out the carrier...done.
ok with a few snakes this may be fine but lets see how clean and neat this is when you have alot more.

even if I were to breed or get more snakes and buy more feeders I do not see that it will be messy or a hassel at all. A couple more critter carriers and it is done. I can easily wash them out in 2 minutes.


8. My personal opinion is it is much more natural for them.
[Byour right, it isB]

yep..that is the great thing about America...we get to have opinions!


Again...I don't give a poo what anyone else does....I am not here to convince anyone. However with that being said...it gets really really old when some ppl that do feed F/T push it so much.



Again everyone can look there are so many of these threads and quite frankly its just ridiculous to care what someone else does...it is their choice. If you do it right there is little to no danger involved in live. True I would never put a feeder in and leave it alone. In this house we do not close the bin unless it is dead..simple.

But to condem or to feel the need to point out how FT is better or to just have a better than thou attitude about it just gets old.

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I just want to get that out there that I was not trying to condem you or raise my nose about feeding FT. I was trying to get some debate going.
If you have the time, space, experiance etc to house, breed, and can feed live to your collection or have the right places to buy live then thats great. Snakes were meant ot eat live rodents and if you monitor them I agree the risk of bites is very slim.
I was stating that feeding FT has less overall risks, cleaner (unless you think they are gross.) cheaper, and easier then dealing with live rodents especially for people with large collections.
Again, it comes down to personal choice, and what you have space or patience for lol. and I agree that trying to condem or feeling superior is wrong.

Here are my list of Pro's to feeding live:

1) I know the health of my feeders because I raised them, and I know exactly what nutrition went into them. When I have to supplement my production, I know exactly how my supplier also cares for their colony.

2) Producing my own and also buying live in bulk is more economical for me than buying F/T in bulk with the min buy and shipping fees associated with F/T - F/T at Petco and Petsmart are :O.

3) I don't have a large freezer that I can keep a f/t order in - I'm in an apartment.

4) Risk of injury/scratches is almost zero (see my stats previously of .000769% chance of ANY injury - I'll take those odds any day - I don't think I have those odds of avoiding a car accident)

5) Picky animals take live far more readily than f/t

6) I don't have waste if there's a refusal, the animal goes back into the tub to be used the following week. F/T gets thrown away if refused - I don't refreeze meat for myself, why would I do so for my snake?

7) I do use F/T for my colubrids, because I don't breed mice myself, and they require smaller prey than what I can consistently get - AND they're not picky. I've recently decided that the only ball in my collection to be fed F/T is my albino - only because their skin shows incidental scratches, that do not show up on normals or other animals with melanin.

8) Live has served me well, my collection is scar and blemish free, and random fecals also find them to be parasite free. I see no compelling reason (other than that stated with the albino) to switch my collection to F/T.

I was freezing frozen rats to mine when I first got him (is that what F/T means?). However, about 6 weeks ago I decided to try live prey.

Now, my snake was eating frozen just fine, but the process took ME several hours... drive to the store, drive back, thaw, warm up, feed. And frankly, I don't have the time for it. Besides, he seems to love live prey. I've only had one meal leave a mark on him so far and it was extremely superficial (a couple scales scratched). I get to see my snake feed in it's more natural state... the snake is happy and I am happy. I also don't see a reason to switch back to frozen.

If one of my meals hurt him, that would be another story. But that has not happened and is not likely to happen.