Do you remove hides when feeding live?

[southwind]

Do you remove hides when live feeding?

I feel as if it would be a bad situation to have a rat+snake in the same hide if for some reason the rat got curious and wanted to explore inside.

Any insight I would be grateful for!

[satomi325]

Do you remove hides when live feeding?

I feel as if it would be a bad situation to have a rat+snake in the same hide if for some reason the rat got curious and wanted to explore inside.

Any insight I would be grateful for!

Nope. I don't remove hides. It allows the snake to choose whether or not to come out. I don't want to force them to interact with the feeder or not. Taking away a hide may surprise the snake as well...

I have tight fitting hides, so there is no way a feeder can wedge itself in with the snake.

As long as your rat is curious rather than seeking your snake to attack, I wouldn't worry about it. A curious rat often results in a dead rat.

[martin82531]

I remove the hides.

I worry about the ball getting bit after the initial strike and while the rat is being constricted. This allows me to place an object in the rats mouth during its final moments to help prevent an injury to my pythons if necessary.

This cannot be accomplished if the rat and ball are both out of sight.

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[snakesRkewl]

For the few snakes that I have that use hides, I do not remove them.
They like to strike at the entrance to their hide, and removing the hide for a shy snake isn't something I do, they have that hide only because they are shy.

[pigfat]

I remove mine just for safety concerns. I want to visually see both snake and rat at all times and be ready to intervene if need be. But none of my snakes are very shy.

[digizure]

I don't feed my snakes in their tub. I take them out and put them into another tub and give them the rat.

[Capray]

I do. Like others I want to be supervising everything that happens, and it's annoying if the rat goes in the hide when the snake is trying to hunt, and the snake can't find it. Also sometimes picky eaters are intimidated if a rat "comes on too strong", and might be traumatic to be cornered in the hide with a particularly outgoing rat sniffing at it.

[coldbloodaddict]

No... I only use hides for picky eaters though, so it would be counterproductive to remove it while trying to get them to eat...

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[DooLittle]

I only remove the adults hides, and that's simply to give them more room. Because they usually aren't in them at feeding time, they are roaming, and I want them to have a clear strike, without a hide in the way. My young ones like to strike at the hide door.

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