Switching to live feed ..is she ready

[Sheerules]

Hey guys an gals so my bp is about 1.5 years old eats f/t like a champ and is prett6 aggressive towards her food meaning I only have to dangle her food for nt long before she pounces and wraps up pretty good for atleast 10 to 25 mins each time just wondering if she's ready for rat pups an hamsters I just hate having to dethaw an then warm back up dead rats lol

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[BeelzeBall.]

If you switch to live it might not want to go back to frozen, and why hamster? give her a hamster and she might not want to go back to rats. if it aint broke don't fix it.

[Oxylepy]

I breed my own rats for my reptiles, so I feed live, f/t, and recently killed.

Why on earth would you want to go from an affordable option which involves little to no stress and only a tiny bit of work to feeding live?

I've had 2 of my snakes bit pretty bad by live prey over the last year and honestly, I prekill before I offer anything to my adult bps. You're much better off ordering in bulk online, and feeding f/t than you are feeding live. In fact most people specifically ween their animals off live food to f/t. Why give up a good thing?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Hamsters are a bad idea especially live they are aggressive and have long teeth, they are also crack to those snakes which means if your supply runs out or have to re-home your snake it will be an issue, not to mention they are fatty and too fury.

Any snake is ready for live very few will be afraid of a live prey and prefer F/T, the question are you? Are you willing to stick with it even if you change your mind thereafter but your snake is stuck on live? Do you know how to safely feed live?

Honestly if I only had one snake and it took F/T I would stick with that, it's a lot easier and more convenient when you have a small number of animals (no weekly trip to the store picking up rodents etc)

A rat pup for a 1 year and a half snake is very small unless of course you snake has been underfed and is very small which I can't tell since there is nothing there for size reference or an idea of weight. To know what size you should feed refer to this https://ball-pythons.net/forums/show...ing-Guidelines

[The_Godfather]

They are ready for appropriately sized live prey at birth.

There is minimal difficulty or danger in placing a frozen rat in a ziploc and warming it in hot tap water than buying or breeding rats. The end goal for most keepers is to get your snake to take f/t, not get it to eat live. It's unlikely you will get any encouragement in this endeavor for obvious reasons.

[Lizardlicks]

Most people struggle to get they're snakes to switch FROM live, why on earth would you go the other direction if she's doing fine on F/T?

[redshepherd]

Hopefully all these posts convinced you to stay on f/t LOL. When a snake is stuck on live prey, it is the most obnoxious thing... expensive, you have to care for rats/buy rats every week. And for real, don't feed hamsters.

[Hannahshissyfix]

I'll just repeat, do not try to switch to live! There is absolutely no benefit and nothing but downsides to feeding live. If you think it's a pain to thaw then wait until she refuses to eat and you end up having to house, feed, and clean a pet rats for a few weeks to months!