feeding live VS f/t

okay,

so i've been advised on some other forums (from posting pics of my new hog island boa) that i shouldn't be feeding live and definitely not if i end up feeding him ratties.

so, what does everyone here think... cause to be honest... you people are the ones with a lot of knowledge in this area.

so... with your boas... do you find they get more aggressive if you feed them live? do they get injured by their prey?

any problems you've experienced with live feeding?

i really do prefer live feeding... just seems more natural and easy for me to be honest. but, if i need to... (if he ends up needing to be fed rats) i can do the f/t if you all feed that's best in the end.

so... what's your thoughts?

Oh boy...This is a hot button issue and generally turns nasty. I say do what you like. Whatever works for you...For me, FT works. I feed live when I need to (hatchlings).

I personally am going to switch all my snakes over to those snake sausages..Yummy! <sarcasm>

on no... we don't have to get nasty here do we? just share what you like and leave it at that folks. i just like to be informed... so when someone says to me that i shouldn't do something... i have something behind my... "well, i've read..." kinda thing.

:D

I feed my kids live. Ody's on adult mice and Ophelia will be upgraded to small/juvenile rats starting this friday. (Paying the same amount for three mice...I'm hoping she'll prefer the rat. Doesn't hurt to try, right?)

So long as you are doing it responsibly (ie supervised) live is a perfectly viable option - though i got to concede dead rats can't bite.

We had to transition from f/t when the collection grew and we started with the homegrown rats. We have a few that will only take prekilled though.

(unrelated note: when cleaning out the freezer a couple of weeks ago I came across a couple of very grim and frostbiten rats that had been on ice well ove a year wedged in behind the venison and tater tots lol)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Smulkin

(unrelated note: when cleaning out the freezer a couple of weeks ago I came across a couple of very grim and frostbiten rats that had been on ice well ove a year wedged in behind the venison and tater tots lol)

---

That'll teach you to freeze Bambi.. :)

Can I have some of your tots?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Smulkin

though i got to concede dead rats can't bite.

---

So true! ... It's funny, but the timing of this thread and that statment couldn't be better! ... This morning I was feeding the kids and I have a friends snake on a payment plan that I am taking care of and my buddy asked if I could feed it F/T every now and then. So I thaw out his fuzzy and get it all nice and warm and offer it to the snake. The snake struck and missed the F/T fuzzy and in it's excitement, bit itself in the neck!! And then couldn't get unstuck. :O

I had to slowly work the teeth of a ball python in feeding mode out of it's own neck without getting bitten myself ... not fun by the way!! ... The puncture wounds were nice and deep ... I cleaned the wounds and fed the snake (it ate like a champ) and afterwards I cleaned him again and applied neosporin.

The funny part is that after that I feed out about 200+ live rats and not a single snake got bit. ;)

-adam

HAH!


Well you can safely disqualify my answer as I only just now noticed this is a boa topic ;)

Observant me on a Monday :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

So true! ... It's funny, but the timing of this thread and that statment couldn't be better! ... This morning I was feeding the kids and I have a friends snake on a payment plan that I am taking care of and my buddy asked if I could feed it F/T every now and then. So I thaw out his fuzzy and get it all nice and warm and offer it to the snake. The snake struck and missed the F/T fuzzy and in it's excitement, bit itself in the neck!! And then couldn't get unstuck. :O

I had to slowly work the teeth of a ball python in feeding mode out of it's own neck without getting bitten myself ... not fun by the way!! ... The puncture wounds were nice and deep ... I cleaned the wounds and fed the snake (it ate like a champ) and afterwards I cleaned him again and applied neosporin.

The funny part is that after that I feed out about 200+ live rats and not a single snake got bit. ;)

-adam

---

That is crazy! Are you now making the bold statement that live is safer!?! :)

i feed my ball python live also, but in regards to the hog i think it is easier on my hog to feed live. like we discussed in the other thread, they get pretty aggressive. just this week i threw her mouse in and walked away to the other side of the room and noticed that she was watching me instead of the mouse. i covered her cage and stayed by so i could check every minute or two to be sure everything was goin good. point being i think IF she would take a f/t from me that it might be kinda stressful, since she gets so worked up when she gets in feeding mode and im on the other side of the room. also, ive gotta say i am not worried about her, she is a BEAST once there is a mouse in there.:taz:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jglass38

That is crazy! Are you now making the bold statement that live is safer!?! :)

---

I don't think that's what I said at all? :fishslap:

-adam

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Adam_Wysocki

I don't think that's what I said at all? :fishslap:

-adam

---

I just wanted to stir up some controversy... :oops:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jglass38

I just wanted to stir up some controversy... :oops:

---

Oh grooby thanks troll :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Smulkin

Oh grooby thanks troll :P

---

And sometimes, I like to feed my snake hairballs that the cats leave behind. Is this ok? I also keep my snakes on a heat rock in my cedar lined closet. This is fine, right?

i need to apologize for jamie's behaviour... the fact is... lately everything he posts is exactly what i want to hear... so... he's feeling the need to break out... be free of his "good guy image"

*back to the regularly scheduled thread*

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by recycling goddess

i need to apologize for jamie's behaviour... the fact is... lately everything he posts is exactly what i want to hear... so... he's feeling the need to break out... be free of his "good guy image"

*back to the regularly scheduled thread*

---

I've never had a good guy image...I don't really like it. I am going for intimidating thug. Straight up gansta..West siiiiiide!

oh shut up jamie... you are soooo daft.

i hate what you say.
don't like what you do.
can't STAND how you smell.


*there... feel better?*

hey adam,

any of those snakes boas are just balls?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by recycling goddess

oh shut up jamie... you are soooo daft.

i hate what you say.
don't like what you do.
can't STAND how you smell.


*there... feel better?*

---

Now I just feel like I'm at home...

hahahahaha

Honestly, feed whatever works for you and your snakes.

Most of my BCI's all feed on F/T almost from the time they have their 1st meal as newborns. Some require a little teasing to get a strike, some are fine just leaving their meal in the tub and a few do require live to get them going. Since I recently found a stable rat/mouse supplier by my house that is comparable in price to F/T after S&H, I now simply now opt for live to get babies started. I simply order Frozen quantities from the same breeder and can switch them later on.

My Dumeril babies require some substrate to burrow under and 90% of the time required live feeders to get going. Once they had a few meals in them converting them to F/T is not a problem.

With my BP's, I've only offered live rats and have not had a single problem or meal missed. Hopefully I can switch these to F/T while they are on weaned rats. Just because I prefer F/T due to the convenience factor, but I really don't care if I ever get them on F/T as long as they keep eating!

You said this is for your Hog Island Boa, you should not have any problem at all getting it to feed on F/T from the start. Hogs usually have a pretty good feeding response and will take food before they hit the tub or if you leave it over night you'll find it's disappeared by morning!

If you prefer live because you don't feel like ordering bulk Feeders for 1-2 snakes, you can always Pre-kill it before feeding or stun it. Just feed your Hog what is was fed before, but I would have it on rats Vs mice considering at some point it'll take large/jumbo rat sized meals.

Good Luck!

here's what i think... from all the posts i've read and all the responses in all of them...

f/t is best if that's what you believe.

live is best if that's what you believe.

you can find a LOT of posts and experiences for each side of this... so... if you want f/t to win... you can make that happen. if you want live to win... you can make that happen as well LOL

do you agree?

or am i missing the bus? :P

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by recycling goddess

here's what i think... from all the posts I've read and all the responses in all of them...

f/t is best if that's what you believe.

live is best if that's what you believe.

you can find a LOT of posts and experiences for each side of this... so... if you want f/t to win... you can make that happen. if you want live to win... you can make that happen as well LOL

do you agree?

or am i missing the bus? :P

---

It's not about a group to win or lose. It's finding and knowing what works for you, your situation and your snakes. No one can answer this for you, but you.

All anyone can give you is opinions and experiences. You have to decide what works best for you.

as long as it works for you and your snake is eating you are money!!!

ya that's what i meant :)

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:

Well, I don't have a boa, so I didn't answer the poll question. However, I can say that I fall into the camp of "whatever works best for you." I just don't think that in this case there is a "right" or "best" answer, except for what you can provide most conveniently and consistently.

i am completely and totally overwhelmed. i feel like i'm doing it the 'wrong' way. i have so many people (on different forums) telling me that live feeding is bad... that i can harm my snake and i'm feeling horrible for wanting to stay with live.

live prey feels more right to me. i think perhaps if i had IRL people who had negative experiences with live... i would feel different. but the people i do know IRL seem to feed live... and haven't had any problems.

i understand what people who believe f/t is the healthier, wiser and more responsible choice see in that choice. i really do.

but... i guess i'm starting to feel like my choice is the wrong one.

:( this sucks

Well, for goodness' sakes! You just tell those poopy-heads to stop being so bossy! Why the heck would you go to any other forum but this one anyhow??? :P


Seriously though...do you take good care of your snakes? I am sure you do!! I would go so far as to bet real money on the fact that you dote on them! Stay confident in that!

There are people out there who feel they must convert every soul to their way of thinking about any given subject. Anyone outside of their tiny little box is just wrong! Please don't let that kind of person cause you to lose trust with yourself.

If you really enjoy those other forums and don't want to just leave or ignore them, then maybe just ignore this particular issue. Just don't mention it or bring it up. Agree to disagree...live and let live....and all that good jazz. :hug:

if you feed responsibly it is not all that dangerous. granted things can happen, but by keeping a close eye the risk is greatly minimized. i hate to use myself as an example so lets use adam. if it was inherintly risky and majorly damaged the snake that was being fed, would he feed all of his incredibly expensive balls live? no, either method works. to say that one is the only way to go is ignorant. either works. ive fed both and live just works better for me and with my snakes.

this is the only snake forum i'm on. i go to a cornsnake forum to read information but rarely post.

i did however, post photos of my new hoggie on a forum unrelated to snakes and that's where the members who have snakes or have had snakes started to share their opinions. they aren't being bossy or horrid about their sharing... just saying some things which are striking fear in me.

reminds me of some other situations in life... where fear is used to convert one way of thinking to another...

i guess i'm just overwhelmed. (in many areas of my life at this moment) and it's spilling all over this issue...

breathe... i have to remember to breathe...

(aleesha's mini-breakdown is over, nothing to see here folks... just ignore me)

Well, the way I see it is that yes....it is theoretically possible for the rodent to bite your snake and injure it. But unless you're leaving live, hungry rats in the cage overnight or something, there's NO chance of a rodent eating big chunks out of your snake, or other similar horror stories people are so afraid of.


But it's also possible that that frozen rat doesn't get quite thawed out in the middle, even though it seemed quite warm...and makes the snake very sick.

Anything meaningful we do in life is gonna have some risks associated with it.

But all that aside, I totally know how you feel about being overwhelmed....and suddenly all the little itty-bitty issues of the world seem larger than life. If there's anything I can do to help, please feel free to PM me and let me know!

chris and judy,

some of the stories being shared and opinions are (in a nutshell)

that you can't feed live responsibly cause you cannot stop a mouse or rat from attacking a snake and harming it. that during the feeding process you can't get in between the two of them and stop a 'possibly life threatening' attack to happen from the prey on the snake.

i can see how that is true... cause if the mouse turned on my snake... i couldn't stop it from happening...

that's where my fear is coming from...

in my extremely limited amount of live feeding experience... everything has gone fine each time. i follow adams guidelines on feeding and have found it to work really well...

this is my dilema...

on the other side: i believe that a prey item will not be stressed and freaked out about a snake being in the enclosure - as they don't seem to even care until it's too late. i've seen the mouse go into the hide where the snake is and come right back out again...sniffing around and being all calm... and then the snake comes out behind the mouse and when the mouse is in the right place... wham, it's over.

i believe, the only way for a mouse or rat to harm a snake would be leaving it in the enclosure for a long period of time. i haven't had a snake take longer than maybe 2 minutes max (and that's the longest, normally it's within moments of putting the mouse into the encl)

but... other people are saying that the rat or mouse turned on the snake and attacked.

it's not that i doubt them at all... but that just seems odd to me... that a mouse or rat would attack a snake as, IMO, the mouse or rat would attempt to escape, not attack.

kinda like a mouse attacking an owl... can't see that happening.

(thanks for allowing me the priviledge of thinking out loud here folks)

thank you so much judy! if you could make this back injury heal completely so i'm not in pain 24/7 i think that would be a great start...

i think the pain is getting to me... it's been 7 or 8 weeks now and i want to be out of pain now. :(

Oh geez, that really sucks. :hug: I hope it's healing!! My husband had three compression fractures in his spine (due to his bones becoming brittle from radiation treatments). I remember how long that pain seemed to last. But he DID heal and is completely recovered now.


I am one of the best people I know for coming up with "worst case scenarios" in my head. And while I hear people saying that a rat can kill my snake.....even in my worst case imaginings, I can't see it. I can see the rat biting the snake...maybe even a good, deep bite...but that wouldn't be fatal. And if it got that far, you can be sure my hands would be in there making sure that rat didn't get another chance to bite.

That's the key....is being there to supervise. And no, you can't stop a reflexive bite from happening....but you can put antibiotic ointment on the wound and the snake will likely heal just fine.

I've seen the pictures of "what a rat can do" to a snake. I don't doubt that people have seen horrible things. But I can only think that happened if they put a starved, abused rat in with the snake and then left them alone together. A healthy, well-fed rat is extremely unlikely to even bite at all...much less attack viciously.

ouch... your poor hubby!!! my back is just sprained... or as the chiropractor put it "severely sprained" but i've sprained my ankle before and it didn't take this long to heal... i want it healed NOW!

~~~

anyway... that's what i'm thinking... a well fed healthy rat should not freak out and attack a healthy well fed snake. if the snake was ill and sluggish... perhaps... but a robust, strong snake (like a boa... man the muscles on this guy already is amazing!) - i can't imagine the prey item getting a chance to do much damage and the snakes first instinct would be to constrict tighter to stop the prey item from harming them further...

and i would never put a starving prey item in with my snake anyways... i want them fat and squishy and healthy!

~~~

i'm starting to feel better talking to you... thank you so much judy!

Aahhhh.... my pleasure! I'm very glad to hear you're feeling better about it all. And with some good, healing sleep, I hope you'll feel great!!


G'night hon....I'm off to beddy-bye. :sleep:

me too :D

yea if your hog acts anything like mine he wont have any problems. she is a beast. she went through a period where she liked to bury in the aspen and then ambush the mice from the bottom when they walked over top of her. all of a sudden bedding pops up in the air and the mouse is goin what just happened and then its over. point of that story is if they react like they want it wont be a biggie, if they could care less take it out and all horror stories were just avoided.

You won't have any problem feeding live if you do it responsibly. Put the rat in and watch. If the snake shows no interest (and with a Hoggie you will know immediately) then remove the rat. Snakes have survived for a long time in the wild eating live prey. In my case its just easier to feed FT. I don't want to breed rats and I have a lot of snakes.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by recycling goddess

live prey feels more right to me. i think perhaps if i had IRL people who had negative experiences with live... i would feel different. but the people i do know IRL seem to feed live... and haven't had any problems.

---

Sorry, but I'm just picking back up on this one... What's IRL? I keep thinking Indy Racing League, but it's not really working out for me in context... ;)

IRL = In Real Life


...meaning people you know personally, rather than our myriad of friends we have only met through the Internet.

:hijackd:
Sorry for hijacking, but I just noticed that Jamie's slogan is "The difference is clear." and his company name is Glass Reptiles!! Ok, I guess that's a good sign that working 3rd shift is getting to me... Must be time for bed... Sorry again for the hijack

Snakes have survived for a long time in the wild eating live prey.end quote.

my point exactly. but others say,... this isn't nature so you need to give them safety instead... but for me... as close to nature as possible is what i'm attempting to achieve... within reason of course.

and after much thought and much questioning of myself... i feel that for me, at this time, live is 'within reason' for feeding my snakes. that may change... but for now... this is it.

thank you everyone... i so appreciate your experience and thoughts - sooooooooo much!

in light,
aleesha

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by MARCUS ANTONIUS

:hijackd:
Sorry for hijacking, but I just noticed that Jamie's slogan is "The difference is clear." and his company name is Glass Reptiles!! Ok, I guess that's a good sign that working 3rd shift is getting to me... Must be time for bed... Sorry again for the hijack

---

Damn it was about time somone noticed it! I'm trying out my new slogan! :)

oh i noticed... didn't realize it was new LOL - but it did make me try to click on the underlined word clear and when that didn't work... i clicked on your site!

How about now?

oh i like that better jamie!

at the pet store i get all my stuff at. they have wild cought adult ball pythons, and most of them have small scars on them. i can only guess that is from feeding on live in the wild. at the end of the day you have to ask yourself do i want the risk of my snake getting bit or messed up. also do i have enaugh $$$ for vet bills or to buy a new snake. i feed live the first couple of times a snake eats for me. then when the eat well a couple of times for me i switch to pree killed. just my personal meathod works for me.

fish

hmmm... i always wonder... how many of those scars are from being caught, put into a bin and shipped to petstores... being kept in bins with many other snakes...

and how many of those scars are from the snakes prey and/or their predators.

hmmmmmmmmmm