feed in tank or another tank/tub?

i feed our balls in a box.he know when he in that box he there to eat.people who feed them in there tank are dumb.because when u put ur hand in there to get him/her out they might think ur bait

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Originally Posted by candyman88

i feed our balls in a box.he know when he in that box he there to eat.people who feed them in there tank are dumb.because when u put ur hand in there to get him/her out they might think ur bait

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I guess I'm dumb since my hand doesn't smell like prey and I don't get bitten - EVER. And I feed IN the enclosure.

Since your snake knows he's going to be fed in his box, he's more likely to bite you in the box. Since mine don't know if they'll be fed or not - they are LESS likely to bite unless there's actually food being offered.

Come on - use some common sense. There's no reason for your snake to believe it's going to be fed when you go into the enclosure multiple other times and not JUST to feed.

So, either snakes are smart enough to know the difference between prey items and hands or they're not.

It also seems that it is either a fine idea or not to feed them in or out of the cage.

I find it amusing, and I did NOT bother to read the entire thread, that so many of you feel the need to be correct about something that has no definites.

There are no hard and fast 100% must be done this way or not at all "rules" for keeping snakes.

Aside from the fact that whatever works, read it again, WHATEVER WORKS, works, why is there the need for some of you to put forth "your" methods as the ONLY good ones?

How did we get so many friggin experts on such a small site?

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Originally Posted by MikeySnakey

Never feed your snake in its enclosure. This will make the snake think that whenever you open the enclosure they will be fed and you do not want your hand to be mistaken for food. Also this will make your snake tame because it will be used to the feeding container and associate going into the separate container with feeding.
If you feed your snake in its enclosure it may end up being agressive anytime you open it.

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I also feed my snakes in a seperates tub, they dont seem to mind .

the bp get fed live so its makes life easier in a tub too.

my ball never bite me in the bo he is 6 and about 5 feet long now and lot of people feed them in a tub or some thing

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Originally Posted by rabernet

I guess I'm dumb since my hand doesn't smell like prey and I don't get bitten - EVER. And I feed IN the enclosure.

Since your snake knows he's going to be fed in his box, he's more likely to bite you in the box. Since mine don't know if they'll be fed or not - they are LESS likely to bite unless there's actually food being offered.

Come on - use some common sense. There's no reason for your snake to believe it's going to be fed when you go into the enclosure multiple other times and not JUST to feed.

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Hi,

Back in the old days when I kept multiple snakes in the one enclosure ( what can I say - I didn't know any better at the time :oops: ) I had no choice but to feed them in seperate tanks.

Now I keep them in seperate enclosures and I feed inside their tanks.

The only time I have ever been bitten by any of them under either feeding routine was a Stupid Feeding Error on my part. If they can identify prey enough to get fussy about species etc they can definately tell the difference between a human and a rat or mouse.

If, however, your snake is one of those prone to getting "over-excited" and striking at anything that moves during feeding then simply adjust the method you use to present the prey accordingly to minimise the risk. As died in the wool idiot and owner of relatively calm feeders I dangle the F/T by the tail - but I do make sure the head is the warmest part of the food. :D

When I changed to feeding in their enclosure by the way one of mine was definately resistant to the change and held out for quite a few weeks until hunger got the better of her.


dr del

Ok everyone.

No one is dumb for feeding one way or another. Do what works for you. Sure there are pros and cons to both but really, they are so minuscule that they barely even matter.

I feed inside the enclosure because it is convenient and I can just close the lid and let them be. When I used to feed out of the enclosure, I would have to wait 20 minutes for them to digest and realign before I could move them. That was annoying. It didn't help one bit for this so called "cage aggression".

For those who feed in a separate enclosure, just keep this in mind. If you ever start to have feeding problems, start feeding inside the enclosure. This usually solves the "my snake won't eat" question.

It really comes down to personal preference (assuming the snake eats either way). In most cases we would say "do what is better for the snake", but if the snake will eat in a separate tub and you want to feed it in one, then go right ahead. No one is forcing anyone to do it a certain way. Neither way is proven to be "better" than the other.

I have given this another two seconds of thought and this is what I have.

For those who don't know I've been involved in selling reptiles since before most of you were born. I've done retail, managing other stores, owned my own reptile specialty store, worked with an importer, wholesaler and have produced a few thousand babies on my own of fairly disperse species.

I say this only so you know that I have some background to have reached the perspectives that I have and am not some guy who googles stuff all day and pretends to know stuff like that Bot on Fauna, Seamus Haley.

I have encouraged people for many years not to feed in the tank the snake is kept in and today I started to wonder why. I've kept snakes into the hundreds and never taken them out to feed. But, with my big snakes, where even a chance of a feeding bite would not be any fun at all, I often fed them at least on the floor if not in another container and here's why: newbies do dumb stuff and any bite from a big snake hurts.

So, since a newb is more likely to imitate prey, moving a hand in and out of a snakes face when trying to move or feed or clean, smelling like prey by handling food just prior to giving food to snake, and just plain don't know what I'm doing oops type of stuff that can fool a snake, or irritate one, into biting someone who does NOT have the experience to know better.

An experienced keeper knows not to imitate or smell like prey when it's feeding time and so would have no worries about feeding in the same enclosure the snake lives in. A newb, not having learned those lessons one with experience takes for granted and often forgets the very learning of, will have a better chance of getting tagged just because they're new.

It's that simple. Newbs are food more often because they haven't learned not to be food.

Now for big snakes, I've had burms and one retic that were over 20 and 220 lbs. I've looked snakes in the eye, had them look right back at me and KNOWN that if it comes down to it, they could take me. I am NOT a small man.

Even experienced keepers make mistakes and even great snakes have off days. So, with the big guys I almost, not 100% of the time but more often than not, fed them out of the cages they lived in because I felt better doing it that way. I wanted as little chance as possible that something big enough to wrap me up and squeeze would want to do so.

So, I think a lot of the feed outside the cage talk is just for newbs to save them from themselves.

The rest is just personal preference and the ability to share ideas without getting all buttsore if someone disagrees with you.