feeding live VS f/t

[recycling goddess]

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)

[JLC]

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!

[recycling goddess]

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)

[recycling goddess]

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.

[JLC]

Oh geez, that really sucks. 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.

[recycling goddess]

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!

[JLC]

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.

[recycling goddess]

me too

[hornsrule]

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.

[jglass38]

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.