How do you Zombie dance?

So, I've heard the term "Zombie dance" thrown around a few times. This is the term given when feeding f/t rodents to snakes. The person feeding holds the rodent with tongs/hemostats and moves the rodent around infront of the snake to make it look alive.

My question is, for those of you who do it, do you (see poll) ?

Feeding video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8h0Aondlus

Demonstration of my zombie dance. I try to keep the movement minimal, so as to not startle him off-- there's a moment in the middle of the video where I have to "calm the rat down", so to speak, because I got it dancing too fast for comfort. Don't wanna accidentally bop him in the nose :D

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Originally Posted by Archimedes

Demonstration of my zombie dance. I try to keep the movement minimal, so as to not startle him off-- there's a moment in the middle of the video where I have to "calm the rat down", so to speak, because I got it dancing too fast for comfort. Don't wanna accidentally bop him in the nose :D

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haha! I love the Cricket cameo appearance!!! too funny.

Here is a video I did a while back. I also use the handstand method. I try not to move it around too much though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iUqcRUSTqOI

My spider really does not like it when his food dances in his face. I actually just heat the rat up and lay it into his cage. He does the rest of the work for himself.

I'm not a fan of the zombie dance, i prefer the zombie stomp. HEYYY HEYYy, DO THE ZOMBIE STOMP!
http://youtu.be/rgj_CVJaHhk

In all seriousness though, i don't have to zombie dance the rats for any of mine. They take them just fine when i just toss them in the cage and leave them.

Most of mine don't need it. For the few that do I find the scruff works best on the larger feeders to make the feeder move realistically, while fuzzies and pups get held at the base of their tail.

Mostly I just open the tub and BAM! Feeder's gone. But my one guy sometimes takes awhile to strike. I just hold the feeder and let the natural shake of my hand do the work lol.

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Originally Posted by MootWorm

Mostly I just open the tub and BAM! Feeder's gone. But my one guy sometimes takes awhile to strike. I just hold the feeder and let the natural shake of my hand do the work lol.

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i had the same issue with 1 one day then one day i accidently dropped it and when i went to readjust to pick it my snake striked it .. so since then i just drop em in her tub now and she just hits it when shes ready .. i got 2 that do that now 1 that im sure will but i have fun feeding him

Depends on the snake. My males just go for it right away so I do a Zombie Headstand. My females that were on Live not too long ago prefer the scruff. But one is moving to the Headstand pretty much entirely now.

I only have one who wants what I refer to as "Dinner and a Show." She prefers the Zombie Handstand.

I hold it by the tail. I don't have to make it dance much though. Ella loves her dinner. As long as it's warm and she can smell it,she doesn't care if I dance it for her lol.

I went with handstand mode although I normally don't have to shake much. To convert on to F/T I used the scruff of the neck and all fours now he hits readily in handstand mode or even if I just leave it in the tub.

I hold the rat with tongs by the scruff. I have a few that miss a lot if I handstand it. I just heat the rat and walk its face up to the snakes face and they take it after a few moments.

I guess it really depends on the snake. All my cornsnakes use the handstand mode, but they hit the mice before I can open their tubs.

The ball pythons all eat live now, but I used to feed them F/T. I tried the handstand mode but that seemed to scare away some of my more nervous eaters. I switched to the "all fours" method and got much better responses from them. Now I have one baby ball python (around 120g) that eats by the "all four" methods. She likes a little bit of movement before she strikes. Then I tug on the tail a bit after she's coiled so she thinks it's alive.

I guess really, it's all about doing what works for you and your snakes.

The poll spelling of explain as expalin should be some sort of political joke but I digress.


Mine respond pretty well to how I do it in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iRWOnoWFh4

The handstand seems to be pretty popular! but I found my bp's strike the back of the rat (if they strike at all), then struggle to find the head.

What I do is grab the scruff with the forceps, then hold the tail with the other hand so its belly down. Then I can wiggle and shake as much as needed :)

I saw the title and was having mental images of zombie traffic cops and people doing something like the Bernie around their reptile room...then realized what you were talking about. I don't zombie dance anything, for the ones I do prekilled with, I just set it in the cage right in front of their nose. I do have a couple of beauty snakes that have caught mice out of the air when I've tossed them to them before, those are fun to feed.

Like a boss

sent from my Galaxy s3 using tapatalk2

I hold them under their arms. That way I can sit them upright and/or put them on all fours.

Definitely by the tail, less of a chance of any kind of incident.

I generally hold the rodent by the waist or the back legs. I've always called it the dead rodent puppet show but I guess with the popularity of zombies these days zombie dance is as good of a name as any. I also like to make up funny voices and pretend that the rodents are insulting or goading the snakes while dancing them around. :rolleye2:

For me, it depends on the snake... some prefer the zombie handstand, some like the rodent on all fours, and with others I simply leave it in the tub. This thread is making me laugh. :D

Oh, and with my colubrids I only have to watch my hands - they strike pretty much the second the tub is opened! My hognose, since she isn't a constrictor, can't catch the mouse if I dangle it from the tail... it literally looks like a blindfolded child trying to break a pinata. :P So I've learned to grab it (with the tongs) around the middle, where I get the most leverage to keep it steady for her.

It kinda depends on the snake and that snake's mood at that particular time. For instance, when someone is easing back into feeding mode, they seem to want me to just lay the warmed rat in the tube, close it, and move on. I check back later and if it's still there, it is re-warmed and given to one of the back-up snakes. (This is only for well-established critters, never QT!)

Other than that, I voted scruff. I hold the rodent on forceps behind the shoulder blades for most of the snakes. For babies, I like to grip the rodent at the hips, so I can hold it level like it's upright and alive. I don't really move the rat for anyone unless they seem on the fence about eating, then how really depends on that snake.

I actually use a combination of them all tbh. Some snakes won't take a dead rat unless it looks like its actually alive. Others will take it hanging from the tail because all they think is HEY IT'S DINNER TIME!!! And then others I just have to mess around with them a minute to get them to eat, usually consisting of multiple positions lol.

I just wanted to take a quick second to thank everyone who has participated in this thread :)

For my ball I do the head stand, she doesn't like food that just lays there. for my RTB I just drop it in and bam.

Sorry for the typos, I have large thumbs and they make typing difficult.

I just want to state for the record that this is the awesomest poll ever.

Wasabi always watches me before I feed him and as soon as the zombie is in range....boom...headshot. No dance needed.

Most of my snakes either take their food as soon as it appears inside their tub, or will take it after I leave when it is laying still in their tub. The rare occasion one needs some encouragement, I'll hold the rat by the tail, just because that's the easiest place to get a good grip (for me).

I have one (who will only eat mice) who's perfectly content to just have them dumped in there. My big girl however insists on fresh killed, non-white rats, presented with the tub pulled 1/3 of the way out, water bowl and hides removed, in zombie handstand pose, moved back and forth at a moderate pace parallel to the edge of the rack. Guess how long it took me to get THAT exactly right!

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Originally Posted by Badgemash

I have one (who will only eat mice) who's perfectly content to just have them dumped in there. My big girl however insists on fresh killed, non-white rats, presented with the tub pulled 1/3 of the way out, water bowl and hides removed, in zombie handstand pose, moved back and forth at a moderate pace parallel to the edge of the rack. Guess how long it took me to get THAT exactly right!

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Sounds like she's got you trained pretty well. :D:D:D

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Originally Posted by MarkS

Sounds like she's got you trained pretty well. :D:D:D

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She sure does, but she also gave me five healthy eggs, so I'm willing to indulge her whims. ;)

*sighs* apparently not the right way...tried that scruff thing tonight with a nice warm squishy previously frozen stiff small rat. He definitely wanted to eat it as he struck pretty quickly. Problem was it shocked the hell out of me and I ended up banging the tongs against the side of the tank.

Im used to feeding live. My girl ate tonight, one adult mouse dropped in tank ='s dead mouse in 2.2 seconds. This is def going to try me since my first instinct is to run my ass down the the pet store and buy a nice juicy live rat.

I need an intervention!!!

I voted other mostly because I do different things with different snakes. I got a group of ball pythons that were all off feed when I got them and some were pretty thin. I had to learn quickly how to present their food to them so I could get some weight back on them. Some only like it if the rodent is scruffed and standing up, some prefer their rodent to be scruffed and on all 4s and some have other weird quirks like dragging the rodent backwards by the tail and some just like it to wiggle a little bit. I've had some that want their rodent to move quickly, some slow and some even need me to literally toss it and they'll catch it sometimes mid air (found out when I dropped her rodent on accident). Most of them have now learned feeding time though and no longer need the special attention but some still require certain requirements to be met before they'll consider it.

I remember the first time I tried to feed Allure I had the mouse by the tail like I'd seen in youtube videos. He was looking at it real interested but I couldn't get him to strike. My sister pointed out that in Garrick's videos (he's who I got him from) that he held the mice by the scruff of the neck. Did that and bingo! He struck.

Usually I just hang the mouse there by it's tail until he gets it... I feed Dovah p/k though so usually it's still twitching when it gets in there ;) He hates the zombie dance...
My corn will take the food no matter what, I've never zombie danced for him.

For 6 out of 7 of my snakes I just hold the rat by the base of the tail. Most of the time I don't even have to move it. I have a couple that SLAM their rats every week without so much as a wiggle from my end. My BEL is much pickier, though, and her rat I hold by the scruff and fool her into thinking it's live. She's a "dinner and a show" kind of gal.

Looks like, based on the poll, the tail and the scruff are both pretty close.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to participate in this thread!

-Ricky