How Frequently Do You Feed Your BPs?

[Egapal]

Oh man so many comments

The analogy was meant to show that to feed f/t becasue your snake might get injured while contricting live prey, would be like somebody serving you perchewed food your entire life through a straw out of the danger you might chip a tooth while chewing. You could argue whether you blend a burger or eat it in bites you will get all the same stuff... But think about the mental effect that years of not being able to exercise your natural feeding behavior would have on you, Even if you were raised like that from birth and you never chewed a bite in your life. Not to mention long term physical muscular effects.

I strongly disagree with this entire line of thought. Humans once had to hunt and gather. Now we do not. Our health as individuals and as a species could be called in to question but there is no doubt that whether or not you hunt and gather is not an issue of health. Humans who maintain a healthy weight and eat frozen food are much healthier than people were 1000 years ago. There is a lot of evidence to back this up. Skeletal remains speak volumes. Comparing human emotional well being to a snakes is like comparing your snakes emotions to your scorpions and your scorpions to your pet rocks. Reptiles do not have the same brain structures as humans. I have no doubt they have emotions but they are alien as far as human comparison goes. Oh and you may be traumatized if I gave you nothing but insects to eat but children raised in other cultures would not. I have two cats who have never killed there meals and they are doing just fine. They are allowed to go outside and hunt if they choose. They like dry cat food.

Some snakes take F/T in the same way they would take a live rat... With attack... contriction... ingestion...
IMO if your snakes stops contricting it is time to start taking steps to get them back into the habit. Because the fact is that you CAN break an animal of it's intinctual behaviors, especially in captive bred animals. All you have to do is provide an environment where they do not need to exercise those behaviors for an extended amount of time. Put a perfectly healthy person a machine that breathes for them for years... Then take them off of it... Chances are they have lost touch eith the area of the brain that automatically tells you to breathe.

I completely agree with this line of thought. By your own admission F/T is fine as long as the snake is acting normally. My BP kills her dead mouse ever time I feed her. I ran out of the size mouse I normally feed her and decided to try feeding her two fuzzies that equal her normal meal size. She struck and constricted both. Sometimes I wonder why she constricts for so long.

As far as the Vegetarian argument that is a whole different debate I will try not to get to far into. I will make just a couple points... The two pointy teeth in my mouth are obviously not there for chewing salad. While studying anthropolgy I learned that there was actually an early race of hominid dating back thousands of years that was entirely vegetarian... Wanna guess what happened??? They died off.

I hesitate to touch this one but here it goes. Vegetarian diets failed in nature because you need a variety of veggies to cover basic dietary needs. I would not suggest trying this with things growing in the woods behind your house but I think Vegetarian diets are feasable in the modern world. On average people would benefit by eating about half as much meat as they do, and shifting the type of meat they eat from red meat to fish. People tend to eat from most to least red meat, fowl, fish when they should eat fish, fowl, red meat.

[quote]As far as nutrition goes... Everything I said above about the oxygenation level in the blood ... and the freshness of fluids in the tissue ... Those are all true. It is the same with the food we freeze for our own human consumption. With the features of the human body we can easily tell who is healthy and who maybe doesn't eat the best. Snakes are different. All we really look at to determine a snakes health is that it eats, that it sheds, and that it sh*ts. Does that mean that those are the only factors related to their health? A person fed junk food their entire life still eats, grows, and defecates... But that by no means does it say that the person is in good health. There is still a lot of research to be done as far as health and nutrition in snakes go, but to accept that you are doing everything right for your snake because it eats sheds and poops I think is falling short because a sickly or malnurished animal could do the same thing. [/qoute]

Ok again this analogy sucks. You are comparing live vs f/t rodents to balanced meals vs junk food. There is no evidence that a human is any less healthy if the food they eat is frozen while fresh and eaten in a reasonable period of time. Whether or not something is frozen is very very minor compared to what you eat.

There was a great point in the article i found ( I will post a link bellow)... But it was along these lines. Take your newborn baby to the doctor and tell him that you are planning on raising your baby on frozen food alone and they will call child protective services on you. Maybe a baby could survive on a frozen food diet...but would obviously would not be as healthy as if they were allowed to eat fresh food and who knows what kind of long term effects would be suffered. I think it is obvious... Fresh food will always offer more benifit than something frozen for an extended amount of time.

This is not true either. Take breast feeding for instance. Breast feeding is natural and healthy. It has many benefits over formula feeding your baby. There are many studies that point to negative affects if you fail to breast feed your child. If you tell a doctor you will be bottle feeding they will try to talk you into breast feeding then give you two cans of formula and send you home with your child. They will then encourage feeding mush after a while and then a balanced diet of meat and veggies most of which are frozen in the civilized world. The doctor will take your kid away only if neglect is smacking them in the face.

[quote]It is even different in this case cause in frozen human food we have preservatives and additives that help offset what gets lost in freezing... Frozen Thawed Rats get nothing! The point is made... That if nothing is lost in Freezing food... Then why do the frozen food companies go through the extensive time and effort required to add these preservatives to our frozen foods?[/qoute]

Thinking for one second that anything a food company does is at all related to your health is a joke. The answer to the question of why does a publicly traded company do anything is always, to make more money. They add additives and preservatives to our food so they can advertise higher nutrition content on the label and so the food will keep longer.

I think that much like being a parent of a human child, as long as you are responsible and educated you are going to do just fine. Feeding F/T is a complex statement that can be good or bad. Are you getting healthy rodents frozen quickly shortly after being killed or sickly creatures killed and frozen hours later allowed to thaw and be refrozen multiple times before they get to you. Feeding live is much the same. Animals in the wild are not always better off. Humans are a great case in point. I am much happier in my heated home with climate control and frozen pizza and steaks and veggies in the fridge than I would be trying to survive the wilds of Northern New York. Cats are another great example. They are not truly domesticated like dogs are. They are just happy to share territory with a human or two. If you are serious about creating an environment like a ball python would have in the wild then expose it to an eagle or other predator every now and again. Should be good for its health and well being after all.

No offense intended to anyone, I too just like a spirited debate.

[WingedWolfPsion]

Have you ever just tried offering non-stunned animals, not on the forceps to your snakes?

I would imagine a stunned animal that's coming out of the fog would be far more angry and likely to bite than one that's not. Especially one that finds itself on the end of forceps.

I don't offer them on forceps, stunned, as the snakes won't accept them that way. I put them in the cage still kicking. I only have a few snakes that are THIS picky. (Both of my albinos). Offer them a live, conscious rodent, and they get bitten virtually every time. I'm glad your snakes are more competent than mine, but that's not the point. lol
As these snakes are a year old now, feeding them only toothless baby rodents doesn't work either.

The primary point is, live rodents CAN HURT SNAKES. And they do. And NOT infrequently. Even a really great hunter can hit a rodent wrong and wind up with a bite.
These aren't wild animals, they are our pets. They don't get bored. They are snakes. They are happy hiding in a hole all day, and most of the night. They come out for food and water.

If you told your doctor you were going to feed your kids only frozen foods, he would shrug and tell you to be sure that they got plenty of veggies. He'd probably mention that green leafy vegetables are healthy, but then, there's always collard greens and spinich available frozen. Tests show that frozen vegetables don't have less nutritional value than fresh supermarket produce. Half the meat we buy thawed was shipped frozen anyhow.

The only nutrient of concern that you may want to supplement when you feed strictly f/t is available in brewer's yeast. There are no nutritional concerns at all with pre-killed.

I have only a couple of snakes that will take f/t prey off of the cage floor--the rest eat it off of tongs, and constrict it first. One of the ones that eats off the cage floor constricts, too. Only one of my ball pythons will simply eat an f/t rodent without constricting it.
(One of my big females did take an f/t rodent off tongs and just eat it...but she took the second one I offered particularly violently, lol).

Comparing live with pre-killed is no contest--pre-killed has exactly the same nutritional value with none of the danger. If the snake doesn't care that it's not alive, you certainly shouldn't. They have no NEED to kill their food.

[jglass38]

The only nutrient of concern that you may want to supplement when you feed strictly f/t is available in brewer's yeast.

Where does this come from? Never heard this before...

FT rodents are just as complete of a nutritional source for snakes as live or "whacked" prey (not humane).

[WingedWolfPsion]

Where does this come from? Never heard this before...

FT rodents are just as complete of a nutritional source for snakes as live or "whacked" prey (not humane).

Freezing increases level of thiaminase in foods, thus reducing the thiamine levels over fresh rodents. So supplementing B-1 would be a logical choice. Brewer's yeast is a good source of B vitamins.

http://animal.ifas.ufl.edu/courses/ans6449/Thiamin.htm
(Note the loss of Thiamine in frozen meats over time)

http://books.google.com/books?id=6ry...um=1&ct=result

Can you feed f/t rodents without supplementing thiamine and have healthy snakes? Sure. But since Thiamine does affect fertility and nervous system function, and IS reduced over time in storage in frozen meat, why NOT supplement it, just to be sure?

[jglass38]

Freezing increases level of thiaminase in foods, thus reducing the thiamine levels over fresh rodents. So supplementing B-1 would be a logical choice. Brewer's yeast is a good source of B vitamins.

http://animal.ifas.ufl.edu/courses/ans6449/Thiamin.htm
(Note the loss of Thiamine in frozen meats over time)

http://books.google.com/books?id=6ry...um=1&ct=result

Can you feed f/t rodents without supplementing thiamine and have healthy snakes? Sure. But since Thiamine does affect fertility and nervous system function, and IS reduced over time in storage in frozen meat, why NOT supplement it, just to be sure?

For a long time (probably until I hit about 30 snakes) I fed FT exclusively. I have noticed NO difference in the health of my snakes between then and now. I now have close to 100 and feed a mix of FT and still notice NO difference. How do you know what a health amount of B vitamin for a snake is? Do you want to tell everyone how much brewer's yeast they should sprinkle on the thawed prey item to be beneficial without being too much and contributing to some of the negative side effects of too much vitamin B?

[Slim]

....about 10 mins ago

Normally I don't respond to threads that have been on the Forum longer than I have, but I couldn't pass this one up.

[zail]

I feed Lilith (8 yr CB female normal) when she starts to look for food.. this is normally every 3 weeks or so but it can be as long as 6 to 8 weeks.. She once went 6 months without feeding and that was with me offering food every couple of weeks at first and then less often..... I generally feed 2 or 3 prey items over a couple of days - Saturday she had 2 medium gerbils and then on Sun as she was still displaying hunting behaviour I defrosted her a smallish rat. She ate all with relish and is now happily digesting. If she'd been hungry again today I'd have given her another gerbil. By feeding her when she appears hungry I don't get any refused food. When I tried feeding her every week or every fortnight I wasted a lot if rodents...). I have tried getting her into a routine of feeding every 2 weeks or whatever but she won't eat unless she wants to so I let myslef be guided by her...

[rocky88]

Can you point me to a study that says that live is healthier and more exciting for the snake than f/t? The fact that there are thousands of animals feed f/t that are thriving in collections around the world is proof enough that f/t is no less healthy than feeding live.

I am impressed with my snakes and the fact that they are perfectly designed to dispatch their prey - but if entertainment value is the reason to choose to feed live, the keeper might want to re-think their reason for having a snake.

it is really just up to the owner and snake what is a better choice but i personally feed mine live mice the reason for that is because one, thats how it is supposed to be there are no f/t mice in the wild. and two if you freeze the mouse then thaw it out it kills the thiamin and all important B vitamin. so i would suggest feefing live mice unless you can supplement your snake with the vitamins that are lost in the f/t prosess.

[DrEwTiMe]

Quote:
Some snakes take F/T in the same way they would take a live rat... With attack... Contriction... Ingestion...
IMO if your snakes stops contricting it is time to start taking steps to get them back into the habit. Because the fact is that you CAN break an animal of it's intinctual behaviors, especially in captive bred animals. All you have to do is provide an environment where they do not need to exercise those behaviors for an extended amount of time. Put a perfectly healthy person a machine that breathes for them for years... Then take them off of it... Chances are they have lost touch eith the area of the brain that automatically tells you to breathe.


This line of thought is why i wanted to feed live. I wanted to keep the snake hunting the way nature intended her to. Im not sure if it makes her any less healthy or anything if she wasn't taking food the way nature intented. But i just wanted her to keep her natural hunting methods. I would have liked to feed F/T as it is a lot easier to stockpile F/T as well as being easier to feed( not much of a need to oversee the feeding if the mouse/rat isn't alive. Due to how picky BP's can sometimes be i just stuck with what the breeder started her on so i had the highest chance to not throw her off feed. It has been working for about 4 years now and i had only 2 mice even be able to get a bite off, neither of which even broke through the scales. I do see how its possible to be more dangerous for the snake to feed live but that part of it falls on the owners responcibility to watch the feeding closly.

As for my feeding schedule, i feed my BP 4-5 adult mice every 7-10 days depending on her. Sometimes she will eat all of them in on sitting, sometimes she will take 3 and then ill offer the last mouse the next day and she takes it no prob. I was wondering if i should be feeding my snake more mice per feeding time actually. She dont' look at all unhealthy i was just wondering when i should up the amount of mice im offering.

[Dizzlen07]

for that size.. i would recommend 1 mouse a week.. n when it gets bigger like 2 feet long.. start giving it small rats once a week... but dont ever give it something u think it cant handle because i made that mistake once by giving my ball a huge rat.. and i would also recommend giving ur ball live mice instead of frozen.. i dont know why poeple even give it frozen food at all i guess some people are scared the mouse or rat will damage the snake but ive never had that problem and ive had my ball for 5 months

I was feeding live and had one bite my snake after he struck and constricted. Since then I feed Fresh Killed or Frozen Thawed.

All it will take is once for one of your snakes to get bit and then....no more chances.

Just my 2 cents.