Why feed live prey?

[Hermosa]

I'm just curious why some people feed their ball pythons live prey instead of pre killed.

[DooLittle]

If given my druthers, I would not feed anybody live. However, I have one that we adopted as an older Bp, and he will have no part of anything with out a heart beat. F/t or p/k is much safer, and cheaper.

[BPnewguy]

I have one that is refusing all types of pre killed. I have tried just about everything, so I basically have no other alternative except to try the live. I think some snakes are just more picky & won't eat pre killed.

[warlord]

I heard a good way to switch em over is to feed live a few times but still use tongs to hold the live and after a few feelings like that try per killed and than a few later f/t

[Ohlacey]

Well, I don't feed F/T because we once had two snakes in at the vet with what we eventually found was internal gangrene because the rats weren't thawed properly.

I feed live and not pre killed because, well, I've never had a problem with it. While I'd have long stints of fasting when I fed pre killed, I found my snakes became more aggressive feeders and all around better eaters for live.

I've only had one rat show a tooth to my big gal, Sienna, and I reached in and snatched him up before the situation could progress. I got a good bite out of it, but that's the only issue I've ever had. It seems underwhelming in lieu of the benefits I've noted. (:

[mattchibi]

In a perfect world, all of my snakes would eat f/t.

However I am feeding two of my hatchlings live prey right now because that is all they will eat. They show absolutely no interest to f/t and trust me I have tried multiple times. They are still under 400 grams so once they put on some more weight, I might try to switch them over to f/t again.

[Domepiece]

Personally I dont have a problem with feeding live, however I would rather feed pre killed. The one and only reason I feed some of mine live is that they simply will not eat pre killed no matter how many times I have attempted the switch.

[Ohlacey]

(In reference to the sick f/t fed snaked, they were not mine, mind you. I worked as a vet tech. So my grasp on the situation may not be 100% accurate)

[AEnimaDrummer98]

I feed live because I've never had a refusal or problem with it. Plus its the most excitement the animal gets in its life...Didn't you see Jurassic Park? "It doesn't want to be fed...it wants to hunt"

[RobNJ]

"It doesn't want to be fed...it wants to hunt"

There's not much hunting to be done in a tank...captive snakes don't need the "thrill of the kill".

I feed live purely out of convenience. It's much quicker and efficient to feed 25-30 snakes live. I've had no issues with live feeding, and I give my snakes no longer than 5 minutes to eat...if they don't, they wait till next week. And no rats ever end up in the garbage should any snakes not eat.

Most of my snakes will eat f/t as well though. I breed my own feeders and any over-abundance goes in the freezer and fed off as needed.