feeding live VS f/t

My corn & rat snake both eat f/t hopper mice. My ball python is eating live small rats. I wish I could get him to eat pre killed, but he just wants nothing to do with them. Hopefully one day I'll be able to have him eating f/t rats!

I feed all my snakes f/t and that works great for me :) , but i agree with what has already been said before on this thread - if supervised theres nothing wrong at all with feeding live :sweeet:

I recomend dead food for boas only. They will almost always take dead prey and since a large rat could do some serious damage in the matter of seconds even if your watching, its not worth the risk IMO. Its not that hard to kill a rat or buy f/t. Its much cheaper to buy frozen rats and more convenient IMO to keep rats in the freezer and just thaw them when you need to feed.

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

i wonder if they'd even bother to take the mouse or simply see it as nothing.

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I fed Ruby an adult mouse when she was about 5' and.....Well I'll let the picture say the rest
http://pic15.picturetrail.com/VOL591.../157955808.jpg

i guess that pic speaks volumes :)

Aleesha,


Since Drake is going to eventually need LARGE prey (unless you REALLY want to feed him five++ mice at at time....?) and if you are willing to breed or BUY rats or rabbits, then live prey is just fine. You understand how to do it in a responsible manner so that Dexter is put at risk for injuries.

Cost-wise, it is actually cheaper for me to breed our own rats, but only up to about 5-6 week size. After that due to room constraints for grow-out, it becomes a convenience factor, and it's more convenient to buy & feed FT. With Hera eating a JUMBO! every week, it would take me forever to GROW one to that size, so I buy the FT.

Pissy went from live, to FT w/rats and mice back to live a few times, and I couldn't get him back on FT.

I fed the remaining live mice, because my females kept eating their litters, but the rats do okay for raising them to fuzzies. That helps the feeding budget.

With the latest baby, I don't have the right sized pinky mice, for my smaller snakes but all of my boas and the adult BPs are on FT rats. Zeus is on a fast, but when he did eat was a FT rat.

Just remember, as Drake grows, the prey will need to too, or you'll have to UP the QTY!! and that live is good as long as you meet his dietary needs and do it in a responsible (read supervised and safe) manner!!!!

:hug: RuLyn

Sheesh!!! :oops: :oops: How many times can the hoggie turn into a ball python???? Shure cant tell I was tiiiiired when I posted that, can ya?:oops:

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Originally Posted by recycling goddess

that's it? 9 people is all that are going to share their experiences.

i really wanted to get a good well rounded set of opinions to assist me to make my decision on f/t or live -


anyone? :bolt:

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Hi all... I feed my boa F/T just because that was what he was on when I got him. My ball I feed live small rat but I am going to try and get him to switch because my wife won't let me keep live rats in the house and it is a pain to run to the store every feeding day. Will be my first try with him on F/T this weekend. Oh yeah... and frozen is cheaper!!

Peace!!

I feed my 2 boas whatever I have. Usually I will prekill them just to be safer, but they both take f/t. I have not run into any problems with live with any of my snakes. I have a good idea of what forum you are talking about but truth is, most of those pics posted are the worst case and an irresponsible owner leaving too large a rat in for days at a time. Boas feeding responses are usually better than that of balls, but there are always exceptions. No matter what I put in front on mine they take it within a few minutes.

Yes, I know which one too - and went back to read it only yesterday. Not only was a live rat just left in there, but from what I can make out it was A FEW live rats :eek: Snake was bit up really bad it was so sad.


Anyways, I live in the UK and it is illegal to feed anything but f/t here so we get no choice. I think I would still opt for f/t even if there was a choice though especially if using large rats.