I thought most breeders fed live? What do you feed?

I was surfing some frozen mice suppliers websitess and noticed a few breeders giving testimonials on the sites.

I thought most breeders feed live prey?

Guess you learn something new every day...


Who here feeds live verses frozen?

I feed live. Cuts down on the amount of wasted prey items when they decide to not eat

Live :D

A combonation!:D

mostly live,some of my BP's prefer thawed or FK.

Live...

A combination of live and f/t. for me, f/t is cheaper but I have some that won't eat f/t. I would prefer live.

Live. Once I had more then about 5 snakes, it just became a HUGE HASSLE for me to feed thaw frozen.

mostly frozen with 2-3 picky females only taking live.

I feed live.

I buy live and prekill before feeding.

Im hoping with all my new balls that I will be able to feed live completly though!:D

LIVE! but I try to do f/t most of the time with the bloods and red tail for when they get up to bigger items.

Mosty live

Ok now im confused I was under the impress most people fed f/t for the simple reason they can hurt your snake. But this threat is saying completely different

I feed my pythons live and my colubrids take FT.

I hate wasting prey items, as I raise my own, and if I am going to take a rat's live to feed a snake, then having that be in vain is something I am not comfortable with.

I get a stronger feed response with live, and once you have 5 or more snakes feeding FT can be a real hassle (estimating the amount of prey to thaw out, cutting down on waste, etc.).

Feedling live is only a risk if the keeper lets it be a risk. A rat pup at 30g is not going to do any damage to a BP.

I have a maximum size of rat that I would feed, and that is 40g. Even my biggest snakes are content with two... three if they are really hungry (rare). Never had a bite, a scratch, etc.

Bruce

Well I feed both- but mostly live. The only one I really feed F/T is my boa, since most of my balls wont take it-and even the ones that will wont always.

Both of my BPs get live mice.

I've never had a problem with bites or anything.

All live here. I go through a LOT of rodents!

Justin

live:gj:

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Originally Posted by derrabe

Ok now im confused I was under the impress most people fed f/t for the simple reason they can hurt your snake. But this threat is saying completely different

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Well yeah the risk is there, however, it rarely happens. and when it does, it's usually not bad. A lot of the horror stories you will see are from rodents that are left in with the snake for days at a time with no supervision. There are thousands of people that feed live, every day. and there are thousands upon thousands of captive snakes that eat live, every day..and with no incident.

You just have to keep an eye on your animal to make sure everything goes well.

the key thing is to do whatever works for you. If it's f/t, then there's nothing wrong with that. If it's live, then there's nothing wrong with that either.

I can't speak for big breeders with literally hundreds or thousands of snakes...but with those numbers, I can't imagine how they thaw that many rodents each week. Maybe some have it down to a work of art....I have no idea...it'd be interesting to see if they did.

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Originally Posted by derrabe

Ok now im confused I was under the impress most people fed f/t for the simple reason they can hurt your snake. But this threat is saying completely different

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There are lots of threads on this exact subject. They key is to know how to feed live properly.

I use both. If I am having lower rat production for any reason I prefer to feed babies on FT.

There are definitely some big breeders that feed varying amounts of FT. Brian at BHB had a feeding episode of Snakebytes where he showed them feeding FT to the Corns.

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Originally Posted by derrabe

Ok now im confused I was under the impress most people fed f/t for the simple reason they can hurt your snake. But this threat is saying completely different

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Been feeding live to multiple ball pythons for over 3 years now with no injuries.

I would ideally like to breed my own rodents but I can't at the current time. As soon as I can though I plan on switching over everyone to live. Right now I feed 6 F/T and 1 live mice.

I'm not a breeder but I have a bunch of snakes and have switched them all over to live and never looked back. :gj:

I'd estimate that I get a visible injury that I'm aware of, probably twice a year... and that is feeding hundreds of snakes every week.

I've never had a bite that didn't clean up nicely with triple antibiotic ointment.

Justin

I'm definitely not a breeder (so I didn't vote) and I hope it's all right to comment. Anyway, I have just one BP and I recently switched him to F/T. I used to feed live and heavily supervised (I even did it in a separate container that I hovered over...) but that didn't prevent a mouse from scratching the side of Freddie's neck once. And it takes just that once. I treated it just fine (it was small and there's no scar) but since I just have him, it was a push towards F/T. I switched him over right away and haven't looked back.

I can definitely see how feeding F/T to a huge collection could potentially be a hassle so, if I had more snakes, I would probably feed live unless I found a way to save time with F/T.

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Originally Posted by Kathleen

I'm definitely not a breeder (so I didn't vote) and I hope it's all right to comment. Anyway, I have just one BP and I recently switched him to F/T. I used to feed live and heavily supervised (I even did it in a separate container that I hovered over...) but that didn't prevent a mouse from scratching the side of Freddie's neck once. And it takes just that once. I treated it just fine (it was small and there's no scar) but since I just have him, it was a push towards F/T. I switched him over right away and haven't looked back.

I can definitely see how feeding F/T to a huge collection could potentially be a hassle so, if I had more snakes, I would probably feed live unless I found a way to save time with F/T.

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I think the people who worry more and hover and are more fearful tend to be the ones that get the injuries.
I don't know why but thats usually how it goes.

Wow I didn't know so many of you guys fed live. I muuuch prefer F/T simply for easiness. I breed my own rats, when theyre up to size I gas 'em and freeze 'em. On feeding day, I just open up a bag from the freezer, dump desired amount into hot water, wait 10 minutes and feed. Haven't had a wasted prey item in quite some time. I have 17 bps that I feed frozen (rest are hatchlings getting live pups) but when I feed I don't thaw out 17 rats at once, I do it in groups of 5 or 6, then when those are gone I'll dump more in the water. I always save my most voracious eaters for last, because if I've got rats thawed out that no one else will eat, I know they will, so at MAX I would only ever waste 1 prey item in 1 feeding night. And that would be if one of the voracious eaters decided NOT to eat lol. I know I'm rambling and it sounds complicated, but to me it's easier than caring for 17 small's per week.

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Originally Posted by Pwilliams58

Wow I didn't know so many of you guys fed live. I muuuch prefer F/T simply for easiness. I breed my own rats, when theyre up to size I gas 'em and freeze 'em. On feeding day, I just open up a bag from the freezer, dump desired amount into hot water, wait 10 minutes and feed. Haven't had a wasted prey item in quite some time. I have 17 bps that I feed frozen (rest are hatchlings getting live pups) but when I feed I don't thaw out 17 rats at once, I do it in groups of 5 or 6, then when those are gone I'll dump more in the water. I always save my most voracious eaters for last, because if I've got rats thawed out that no one else will eat, I know they will, so at MAX I would only ever waste 1 prey item in 1 feeding night. And that would be if one of the voracious eaters decided NOT to eat lol. I know I'm rambling and it sounds complicated, but to me it's easier than caring for 17 small's per week.

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I know what you mean.. it's hard to get rats or mice up to a breeding schedule for a different batch of sizes every week..

i only have 20 snakes, and i feed f/t EXCEPT one, he regurges f/t

i dono why....

but its easyer, and i dont have to worry about my snakes being hurt.

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Originally Posted by derrabe

Ok now im confused I was under the impress most people fed f/t for the simple reason they can hurt your snake. But this threat is saying completely different

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The thing with making choices about what type of prey to feed and what method of feeding to use is you need to understand it fully. That takes some time, some research and some experimentation. Once you've got it down and are comfortable with your choices and the snake(s) is accepting that prey type and that feeding method then it's all good. :)

We feed live except for those snakes that are going to homes where the new owner feeds f/t. For those snakes we transition them over to f/t before they leave to make sure they'll be all set for their new homes. :)

I think size(and even age) of prey has alot to do with safety. Most of my snakes get small rats that are completely overpowered by the snake so there is little risk . When I do feed a larger prey items like a medium or larger rat I do prekill because the teeth on those are way bigger and an older more mature animal has alot more fight and defensive behavior in him. Small and baby rats are like deer in the headlights and BAM. Mice are nasty little suckers and I dont use them at all.

I use to try the frozen thawed thing but the more snakes I get it's too much of a hassle. Live all the way! I have a lot of snakes that still take frozen thawed after eating live. This works out great because sometimes I need to freeze a bunch of rodents when production gets too high.

Live over here

I absolutely hate rodents -- but I gave whole "raising a small colony to feed my snakes" deal a shot and it sucked -- I didn't produce enough to have enough of the right size when I needed it, it was expensive and it was a whole bunch of animals I didn't like that I had to care for -- way more hassle and time consuming than the 10 minutes it takes to pull some frozen rodents out of the freezer, defrost and heat up prior to feeding.

I feed frozen to the ones that will take them. And live to my picky eaters.

both it just depends on the snake and its size

I feed nothing but frozen. Live is too expensive and only my babies getting started eat live. I just buy frozen in bulk and have 2 large freezers full of rats and rabbits. I used to breed my own rats and feed live but the time and energy spent cleaning and feeding as many rats as I would need isn't worth it to me if I can just feed everyone f/t. Especially working the hours I work, I usually don't even have the time it would take to clean the rats.

I'm a live guy as well..:)

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Originally Posted by Larry Suttles

I'm a live guy as well..:)

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Legend has it that your rats are the size of possums. :D

Wheres the option for both..........

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Originally Posted by Reediculous

Wheres the option for both..........

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yeah same here... my pythons all eat f/t
and the boas are on stunned right now...

i dont feed live ones, only because i dont like the chances of one of my dumb snakes grabbin the wrong end of a live rat... :rolleyes: my largest ball would do that... no doubt...

Mostly FT here except for the few that simply won't accept them.

To reduce/eliminate waste, I feed my snakes on a rotating basis. I don't feed everyone at once. I take out a bag in the morning (usually 12 rats) feed that off. The next night another batch etc. I find it easier since I started doing this, as I don't have to thaw 60 rats at once and it only takes 15 minutes when I'm doing it. I check a couple of hours after and if it hasn't been taken then I give it to someone else. If no one wants it...the Angolans are always hungry... :-)

Denis
DenJenn Reptiles
www.pythonregius.ca

I have some that eat FT, but I feed live almost entirely....

We feed live. Tried f/t, even bought a small freezer to keep them in, but we had way too much waste. We probably should have spent more time trying to find a good pattern that eliminated most of the waste . . .

It is time consuming to raise your own feeders and can get expensive for the "substrate" and food but ours seem to eat well on the live. Like Justin, we only get a scratch once or twice a year and we are currently feeding 200+ ball pythons.

A othes have said, it is about what you think is the best practice for your colony and what works best for you.