Feeding pre-killed mice and rats

:? Okay everybody,
Lest you all think I am some kind of freaking monster :wink: I will admit that I am kind of behind the curve here on feeding pre-killed prey to my snakes. I hate to sound ignorant but I just don't really know how to go about this. I have tried feeding thawed out mice and rats in the past and my snakes would barely even sniff at them. I thawed them out good and even heated them under a lamp to body temp but it still did not elicit a feeding response. A couple of times I had the body wall of the rodent break open which was nasty and sort of put me off on doing this. I have heard all these tales of whacking rodents but it sounds horrible - I got to put them in a bag and bash them against the wall ???!!!! :shock: :roll: or I have heard of using a ruler and popping their spine ???!!! :shock: geez....I have been bit by rats and mice and I sure don't like the idea of trying to kill a full grown rat by popping its head off or something. I don't feel like getting bit ya know?

I see what you all mean by the dangers of live prey though. It has occured to me that now that my BPs are starting to take rats that it is probably a lot more dangerous to the snake than a mouse. Do you not agree???

I appreciate any comments on this from all of you... :mrgreen:

EyeLashViper

well if its a rat you can put it in a pillow case and whack it against somthing hard (like wall,table top,bathtub) and if its a mouse a plastic baggie works great, thats what i use for the adult mice rocky eats. At first i couldent stand doing it but it gets easyier with every feeding. i dont know about popping thier spines with rulers,that sounds kinda cruel,i dunno. I also went through the same thing you are going through like your snake isnt intrested in the frozen thawed mouse and the walls of the mouse break open ,that happned to me only it was the stomach.The first time i tried pre killed he gobbled it right up,since they are at the perfect temp i think he likes them better.

Have you ever tried keeping your rodent in the feeding box alive for a couple hours, then wipe out the box keeping the scent of the rodent, whack your rodent then rub it around the box to make the scent stronger. Put the snake in the feed box then try giving the rodent. My guy used to refuse everything but Live, but I've been doing this and he's been taking.....still won't take f/t but p/k is better than live.

Rats are definitely a different animal than mice are. They are bigger, stronger, and definitely have bigger chompers ;). If whacking rats and mice isnt your thing ( some people cant handle it and that is perfectly ok ), you may want to consider building the CO2 chamber described here by FourFeathers: http://www.ball-pythons.net/index.ph...ewtopic&t=3852 . If you dont want to or dont have the ability to make something that elaborate, a small piece of dry ice in a cup of warm water inside of a cooler will do the trick nicely. Keep in mind that a prey switch over from live to f/t or p/k can take some time and effort on your part. Doing the "mouse/rat dance" is not an uncommon thing to have to do until your snakes get used ( so to speak ) to taking dead prey. The thing to make sure of when feeding f/t is that the rodent is completely warmed up. The last part of the body to stay frozen is the skull due to the amount of bone mass. If you can feel that it is warm, then you've got yourself one warm dead rodent ready to go. The best advice i can give is dont give up. If you really want to make sure that your snakes are safe from potential rat/mouse bites, pre-killed or f/t prey is the way to go.

do what i learned here. get an enclosure. 10 gals. works great. put a bowl of hot tap water in, and drop in dry ice. 2.00$ a lb at baskin robin. you only need about 75 cents worth to kill em. if that.... easy and i think the nicest way. take em out after the smke clears, and they should be good and dead. i think still warm enough too...

Keep in mind too....a dangling, dancing rat can be kinda scary. I think the 2 most important things to focus on when offering a thawed rodent to a bp is temperature and the way it is offered.

Make sure the rodent is warm. Pretty simple to do via heat lamp.

Second, when you are dangling the rodent, do it at a relative distance from the snake to get its attention. I usually dangle the rat in one place and my bp will cautiously move towards it, then eventually strike. I've seen a friend of mine wave a thawed rodent around a snakes face, anctually hit it in the head with it, and the snake would just recoil back and lose any interest in feeding. Key is to make it seem like it is alive, but from the snake's perspective, not aware that there is a snake coming to eat it. Know what I mean?

Im kinda scared about whacking large rats when the time comes, i guess i will learn to deal with it. I guess i would just have to whack it ten times harder than a mouse.Those things are HUGE!!!

Thats just one more reason to try and get switched to f/t prey! No parasites, no bites, no whacking, etc etc

True,but i tried 4 times with frozenthawed and he wouldnt take them, and the very first time i tried pre killed he took it right away.Ive given it alot of thought and i think over time i will get more and more used to killing larger prey items for him but if somebody asked me to kill an adult rat right now i dont think i could do it.Ad if i did it would take me a few hours to build up the confidence

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Originally Posted by Brandon.O

True,but i tried 4 times with frozenthawed and he wouldnt take them, and the very first time i tried pre killed he took it right away.Ive given it alot of thought and i think over time i will get more and more used to killing larger prey items for him but if somebody asked me to kill an adult rat right now i dont think i could do it.Ad if i did it would take me a few hours to build up the confidence

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Did you get the f/t prey really warm?! I mean REALLY warm.
My snake wouldnt' take the f/t mouse either after I thawed it in warm water, so I had a heat lamp over the mouse to get it really nice and warm ... which worked ... I left the heat lamp it for 20-30 minutes even after I thawed it.

It was pretty darn warm, i felt it and it was warm to the touch.So i got some tongs and held it in front of him and he just looked at me like i was crazy kinda like " you expext me to eat somthing that has been dead for a few days". I was seriously thinking of ordering some frozen mice but feeding pre killed is so much easier.Who knows maybe i will give it another try soon. thanks for the advice .

Maybe the frozen mice lost its scent, rubbing a live mouse wouldn't hurt.

i dunno, i think ill just keep on whacking,ill get used to it.

Good Luck, I hear those rats are hard to knock out ... I'm sure you can do it though.

I hope you guys use tongs or hemastats or something. Holding a rat in your hand and waiting for your ball python to take it can lead to stupid feeding error (SFE). The only way you will get any snake to strike a dead rodent is to pretend that it is still alive. A ball python's feeding response requires certain things, 1) The rodent must me warm enough to simulate a live mouse. You either thaw one out or you kill a fresh one. If you dont use tongs or hemastats then the snake will confuse your heat with the rodent's, Ball pythons have heat sensing pits at the front of their upper lip. 2) Smell. Perhaps one of the ball pythons most keen sense they can track a rodent a long ways by tasting the air. 3) Last but not least, movement. When the first two requirements are met they are waiting for the animal to move and if you just lay the carcas in the tank they will never strike at it. Lots of people are discourged about using fresh killed because they say they put the rodent in and the snake just sniffs it and passes it over and might even crawl over it.

Without all three key components a ball python will not eat a fresh killed or thawed rodent.

Excellent Tips Gozetec :)

Umm...i dont have to do the rodent dance thingie.I just hold it above his head with a pair a needle nose plyers (becuase i dont ave a pair of good tongs) and i have never had a problem with him biting me,one time i used my hand becuase i couldent find the plyers i jjust held it by the tail and he grabs it consrtics it and eats it.

Yeah I actually just put the F/T infront of my balls ... and let em strike. Don't really have to do a mouse dance.

yeah this last feeding i accidentally dropped the mouse in the feeding tank and it was sitting there for a few seconds laying perfectly still and he still struck and ate it.I guess differnt snakes require differnt feeding stratagies.

so far i haven't done any mouse dance for my bp, but if it isn't warm enough then she won't even look at it. i pretty much lower the mouse in with the tongs and by the time i have it halfway into the feed box with her she is flicking that tongue like crazy waiting for it to get close enough for her to strike. so far i'm counting myself lucky with her eating habits. :)

another thing some of you may try that have shy or not so good feeders , if you arent useing some sort of tongs or hemos I suggest a set atleast in the 12 inch range haveing the feeder rodent so close to your hand can be a bit confuseing to some snakes and they feel a bit intimidated after all your 98.6 degrees over 100 pounds and smell like a rat :D

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The only way you will get any snake to strike a dead rodent is to pretend that it is still alive.

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Well.....Not 100% true, but close.

With my ball Cheetah all I have to do is drop it in the tank. He can even be in his hide and I can put the p/k rat on the other side of the tank and come back later and it is gone. The times that I have watched, he does strike at it when it is laying there, but just not with as much authority. He has allways been this way since I have had him. With Monty Joe, it's a whole different story. Sometimes even the rat dance dosent work with him.

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Originally Posted by gozetec02

I hope you guys use tongs or hemastats or something. Holding a rat in your hand and waiting for your ball python to take it can lead to stupid feeding error (SFE). The only way you will get any snake to strike a dead rodent is to pretend that it is still alive. A ball python's feeding response requires certain things, 1) The rodent must me warm enough to simulate a live mouse. You either thaw one out or you kill a fresh one. If you dont use tongs or hemastats then the snake will confuse your heat with the rodent's, Ball pythons have heat sensing pits at the front of their upper lip. 2) Smell. Perhaps one of the ball pythons most keen sense they can track a rodent a long ways by tasting the air. 3) Last but not least, movement. When the first two requirements are met they are waiting for the animal to move and if you just lay the carcas in the tank they will never strike at it. Lots of people are discourged about using fresh killed because they say they put the rodent in and the snake just sniffs it and passes it over and might even crawl over it.

Without all three key components a ball python will not eat a fresh killed or thawed rodent.

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Not always true in my experience. I have three bp's now and all of them are have fed on pre-killed only. I have never once had to do the mouse dance. I open up the box, drop the dead rat in, and wait for them to eat it. I might have to wait a couple of hours for them to get the idea, but i've never had to do the dance. Two of them even strike and coil around the rat. Its all about what works for you and your snake. Every owner and every bp is different.

I used to have to do the dance with most of mine (not Bo, too scary for him), but they're all drop-in feeders now. It didn't take Hanover and Sir 10 seconds each to start swallowing their mice last night.

Just grab them by the tails and throw them really hard against the ground. If done right, they hit the floor perfectly flat which knocks them dead in an instant.

I had to feed Ruby a live gerbil to break her from a feed strike due to a former owner (too much stress, and she was losing weight; I didn't want to forcefeed unless it was an absolute last resort) but I buy my feeders from a Jack's Aquarium or a local pet store, and they'll p/k my feeders for me. Ruby has never taken f/t once since I've had her, she'll give me the same "You think I'll eat that junk?" look that others have described. I also try to preserve as much of the natural warmth as I can, and take home some of the soiled bedding from the cage to scent further any food that she doesn't have interest in.
RE: the ruler thing, the idea is to use the ruler to hold the head, then pull the tail and separate the spinal column. In my opinion, unless you *really* know what you're doing, this is a pretty blunt and painful way to p/k a feeder. The guys at the pet store usually just whack them hard against the wall or table, or if there's a CO chamber set up I'll stick around a little bit and just have them use that.

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Originally Posted by Brandon.O

yeah this last feeding i accidentally dropped the mouse in the feeding tank and it was sitting there for a few seconds laying perfectly still and he still struck and ate it.

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Yeah, one time I accidentally dropped the rat and he actually struck at it in the air before it hit the ground. It was awesome!!

And I've never had to do a mousey dance either. Norbert strikes within seconds of seeing/smelling his prey.

whoa, so he caught it in mid air?! that must have been SWEET!

Yeah, it was awesome, it happened so quick I barely saw it. I was holding it fairly close to him before I dropped it, and I think the movement of the rat falling caused him to just go after it.

Wow, i could never kill a mouse or a rat... haha i'd feel way too bad and it would freak me out. Whacking a mouse's head against a table? Goodness.... i just couldn't do it. i feed Pandora f/t adult sized mice. If i do move up to rats eventually, i definately won't be pre killing them. She eats f/t just fine, thank goodness. 10 mice for 12 bucks at my pet store. :)

edit that.... by me saying i wont be pre killing them, i mean some one ELSE will kill them for me. My dad or some one... i'd never feed her live mice/rats

its really not as bad or cruel as it sounds, i swore to myslef i would NEVER get a snake that ate mice becuase i knew i was either goin to have to order frozen mice or kill them myslef and niether of those things sounded very fun to me, but after the first few mice it gets ALOT easier and i dont feel like im goin to go to hell becuase of it ;)

Ohh, and i dont whack thier heads against the table, i dont even touch the mouse i put it in a bag and whack the whole body.Works better and less chance of being bitten.

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Originally Posted by Brandon.O

Ohh, and i dont whack thier heads against the table, i dont even touch the mouse i put it in a bag and whack the whole body.Works better and less chance of being bitten.

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Yea .. rat bites are worse than snake bites :shock: :wink: