My "theory"

[sk8er4life]

I have a theory about feeding live animals to your snakes:

In the wild the snakes have to search and hunt for their food right? So since we keep our snakes in not so "HUGE" enclosures most of the time, it would be unsafe for the snake to feed them in their enclosure since that animal will most likely find the snake faster than the snake will find it or theyll find each other at the same time(which the snake will mostly likely kill it if they do meet at the same time), but if the animal finds the snake first there is a risk of being attacked by the animal isnt there? Well what i was gettin to is that i think if u have a large enough feeding enclosure(like a huge one!) than it would be safe to feed live wouldnt it be?(i still dont feed live tho)

well I would like to know what everyone else thinks about my little theory?

[Jase]

Feeding live isn't nearly as dangerous as most people are brainwashed to believe as long as certain steps are taken. But in the end, p/k and frozen are both way easier and safer.

[Shelby]

I believe that wild snakes are also attacked by their prey, albeit not so often as captive snakes because of the reason you stated. If the snake misses, the prey animal isn't just going to sit there and wait for the snake to strike again, it will defend itself.

[padiente]

Ditto most of what shelby says plus, in the wild a snake can get away if the prey retaliates, in an enclosure this is not the case.

[gen]

Feeding live isn't nearly as dangerous as most people are brainwashed to believe as long as certain steps are taken.

I wouldn't say most people are brainwashed. At least from what I've heard from people on this site, they just don't want to take the chance, however big or small it is. That's how I feel anyway. There have been many debates on this topic on this message board. In my opinion, f/t is safer and easier, as you said. And I think it's a more humane for the mice/rats too, and my snakes take it readily. So feeding f/t is just what works best for me. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and can make their own decision in regards to their pets. I just hope if anyone feeds live they take every possible safety precaution.

[BallPythonBabe448]

In the wild they don't eat as much, so they are less likely to refuse food (this is for all snakes, not jsut BP's). So, it is less likely the meal will hurt them, but most WC animals do have battle scars.

[Shrap]

I see nothing wrong in any of the three feeding options. No one can dispute that feeding FT and PK are safer and easier than feeding live. Feeding live however is not the great danger that many make it out to be. If you know what you are doing and are following proper live feeding procedures, there is very minimal risk involved.

[Smynx]

I think you only need to see the damage a mouse or rat can do one time before you realize that feeding live prey is just not worth the risk. Sure, most of the time, things will go fine, and there will be no problem, but it only takes one bad experience to injure and permanently scar your snake. For me, that's not a risk I'm willing to take. Smulkin was in our local petstore lastnight and saw a baby burm whose head had been mauled by live mouse. Not a pretty sight.

[Shrap]

I have kept Balls for 10 years. Feeding live has a risk, but if you follow a few simple procedures the risk is minimized greatly. Don't get me wrong, I am not against FT or PK in any way. I encourage all new snake owners to feed FT or PK. I am only saying that people have completely over blown the dangers of feeding live. Due mainly to inexperienced herpers making preventable mistakes.

[Adam_Wysocki]

Here's a few thoughts that I have on the subject (if anyone cares .... LOL) ...

1. In the wild ball pythons are actually most often "sit and wait" predators, "ambush predators", or "predators of opportunity" rather than hunters. Most heavy bodied snakes (ball pythons are considered heavy bodied) will rather wait for food to come to it rather than go out looking. Of course if they come across the occasional rodent nest while looking for a borrow, they will certainly chow down. But in general it's unlikely that they "hunt"

2. Captivity is not the wild, so nothing about how they are in the wild actually applies.

3. Been feeding a very large collection of ball pythons live for 10+ years. Rats, mice, gerbils if needed and I've never had a snake bit or "chewed up". I even leave rodents in over night with snakes worth $10,000 and up and have no worries. A few graphic pictures on the internet of snakes chewed up by rodents left in their cage without food for weeks on end vs. that kind of experience and I can safely say that supervised feeding of live prey is just as safe as feeding FT or PK. When you see snakes chewed up by rodents it's because of piss poor snake owners, not because feeding live is dangerous.

4. To me, live feeding is just as humane as feeding PK or FT. In the end the rodent is DEAD and that is sad, but without it the snake would be dead and the rodent would be fed to something else. I think it's silly to say that smashing a rodent against a wall causes it to suffer less than the snake doing what nature designed it to do. Any kind of death is suffering whether is by Co2, whacking, cervical dislocation, or asphyxiation. Arguing about degrees of suffering just kinda sounds silly to me. If you don't want rodents to suffer, buy a leopard gecko.

5. Feeding 200+ ball pythons live food takes me between 1 and 2 hours. If I had to feed them PK it would probably take me at least 5 times that to dispatch and dangle all of those rodents. And on top of that, if I had to thaw them too? LOL ... no thanks. Even then, many of them would just not eat. Feeding live prey all of my snakes eat every week without question (excecpt the snakes being cycled for breeding). So if you think feeding FT or PK is just as easy or easier, I would have to disagree.

6. I've observed thousands of live feedings and I can tell you for sure that if the snake does strike and miss the rodent, the rodent doesn't "retaliate" ... LOL ... the rodent gets scared and looks for a place to hide and by the time it realizes whats going on it's dead. Usually in my collection if the snake doesn't hit the rat in the first 10 seconds, the rat will end up in the hide box with the snake. Most of the time the snake will leave and sit behind the hide box (maybe or maybe not going for the rat later) and sometimes I'll find the snake and the rat curled up together inside the hide.

7. "Battle scars" on wild caught animals are more likely from struggles with predators or a collectors snare rope and hook than from a food item.

I promote feeding in a way that works best for the owner and the snake(s). Over the years, I have done FT, PK, and live and it turns out that live works best for me. What I take issue with is people regurgitating so-called "facts" that they've heard on the internet when they have no practical experience with the subject matter. If feeding pre-killed or frozen thawed works for you, great! But please don't tell other people that feeding live will cause their snake to get chewed up, isn't safe, or isn't as easy, cause it's just not true.

-adam