Do you use live or f/t food?

For me I try to feed f/t because that's what I find easier. Not all of my snakes need the zombie dance and for me doing it for the ones that do is easier and less time consuming. It takes time to feed and clean the rats you breed. I have 47 snakes so buying them each week is out both financially and logistically. I always have some snakes that want live, though, and they get it. I don't believe in starving my babies to try to force them to take f/t. Rats are really pretty safe to feed at any size. Most will choose flight to fight. If you watch you can intervene with the ones that fight. Mice are only dangerous if left so long they get bored and/or hungry. If your snake's fat and happy, you should be too whichever way you go.

I currently have five ball pythons, three of them are large adults and two are subadults. I feed f/t only for a number of reasons. It's easier; none of the ball pythons I've had in the past required 'zombie dancing'. The only snakes I've kept that do are kings. The way I learned to feed ball pythons is holding the prey item behind the shoulders in the tongs directly in front of the snake's face, that works for my two subadults who haven't gotten used to eating rats from their enclosure floors. My three adults are trained, for lack of a better term, to simply eat f/t rats that are put in their enclosures. I do have a problem feeder who occasionally will go off feed. But she is also aggressive in general and would likely kill a live animal, then not eat it.

I also find the ethics behind it in favor of f/t. Frozen rats are humanely euthanized then frozen by the vast majority of major f/t suppliers. I acknowledge that predatory animals need to eat, I've kept various kinds for over ten years. But what I can do as a keeper is reduce the amount of suffering required to keep and breed animals. In the past I had a mouse colony hovering around 100 animals, I euthanized all mice intended to be feeders. Was it time consuming, yes. But no more than keeping that many live mice is. For me, it isn't about convenience or time (I'm a full time student with little time as it is), it's about doing what is best for all animals involved. I would use my methods whether I had five snakes or five hundred.

This in mind, I fully appreciate that other people have differing systems that work for them. As I said, these are my ethics, not anyone else's. They wouldn't work for everyone and I would never force my views upon another.

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Originally Posted by treeboa

For me I try to feed f/t because that's what I find easier. Not all of my snakes need the zombie dance and for me doing it for the ones that do is easier and less time consuming. It takes time to feed and clean the rats you breed. I have 47 snakes so buying them each week is out both financially and logistically. I always have some snakes that want live, though, and they get it. I don't believe in starving my babies to try to force them to take f/t. Rats are really pretty safe to feed at any size. Most will choose flight to fight. If you watch you can intervene with the ones that fight. Mice are only dangerous if left so long they get bored and/or hungry. If your snake's fat and happy, you should be too whichever way you go.

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Same here, some of my snakes are so lazy they dont even constrict, they just swallow it.

Mine also stopped constricting after a while when he was fed frozen. But lately he strikes again and constricts hos rats. Go figure. And its much easier and less stressful for me using frozen. One of live mice has biten him because of his poor strike and since then no more live ones.

f/t fluffs.. last feed was his 1st time with the fluffs.... needed very little encouragement. :)

I feed f/t mainly fur the purpose that I love mammals too much to feed live. It's also easier for me to not have to try and keep a feeder alive. Extra supplies and extra effort. With f/t I can buy them in bulk and keep 'em in the back of the freezer till it's time to eat. As long as they're heated up and wiggled with the tongs, I've never had an issue with a snake refusing its food, even when they were being switched from live.

Personally I don't get the whole 'saving time by feeding live' idea. with 90% of my snakes I hold the frozen thawed rat above their heads and BAM it's gone. With a few of them I'll have to jiggle it a little bit but I never spend more then 10 seconds doing that. If they don't eat it then I just drop it in their cage and check back an hour later. If they still haven't eaten it by then, then they don't eat that week. Eventually when they get hungry enough, they'll eat when the opportunity presents itself and not expect a show with their dinner.

99% f/t. live for the picky babies, and then f/t as soon as possible. Live is a royal pain in the arse. I can't stand rodents and the day I have to maintain a colony of live ones is the day I stop keeping snakes.

I only have the one youngster and when I bought him, he was already on f/t. To feed, I let the rat thaw overnight in the fridge, then take it out when I come home from work and let it come up to room temp. When we're ready to feed, I warm the rat to right around 100 degrees using water. I use a temp probe pressed against the rat in a few places so I'm not getting it too hot or too cool. My husband offers the rat using tongs. (Neither of us will touch the prey. We're not squeamish by a long shot; we just don't want our scent on prey.) Hubby doesn't have to do a zombie dance. He just hold the prey a bit above the snakes head and within about 10 seconds ZAP!

I buy prey from either the local reptile show where I bought my boy or from a locally owned pet store here. Since I've only the one, it's not very costly.

PERSONALLY I prefer to feed live. Each person has a preference. It doesn't make 1 better than the other. You use what you prefer and don't let someone tell you that your evil for doing it.