Yay it ate first try

[Pruitt]

I'm so happy. I got my 2and a half year old 7 days ago. and today I went to the store got some mice to try to feed it. i pull a mouse out of the box. use my trusty mouse sleepy maker...aka a bent brake lever of a motorcycle. pop him in the noggin once. and he was out. well i thought, he was kinda twitching a little and so i dropped him in front of the snakes hide. well he wakes up,I'm freaking out. oh **** he's gonna hurt my snake. He had his tail pointing straight up. so i grabbed it to pull him out and knock him out again. to late. as i grabbed the tip of its tail it tried to run under the water bowl were the snake was hiding. well the snake met it half way and had a yummy little mouse...


I'm so happy that it ate without trouble...

[gmmuscle91]

it is really inhumane to knock it out like that. i feed my snake live mice with no trouble. if you want them dead or knocked out get a co2 chamber

[jglass38]

A mouse is not going to harm an adult BP. Please feed live or use a more humane method than cracking it in the skull with a brake lever.

[Johar]

heheheh.. poor mouse.. believe me, the mouse will not have the time to think of biting the snake there are so many care sheets. they could tell u how to kill the mouse. but i feed it live ones anyways.

btw, congrats i know its exciting. just dont torture the poor mouse i feel sorry for him just to be feeding him for my snake. but things have to be done

[rabernet]

First, congratulations on the successful first feed!

Secondly, many of us here do feed live with no problems at all. I think I'd be more concerned that the mouse would "come out of it" and be pizzed off and more likely to attack than ignorantly exploring the enclosure before it knows what hits it (the snake).

I've been feeding all my "kids" live with no incidents. Just be sure to remove your mousey friend if your snake doesn't eat and try again the following week. I usually give my "kids" 30 minutes. I know them well enough (well Kashmire anyway, the others are striking in under two minutes) to know that if they haven't taken it in the first 30 minutes, they're not taking it at all.

In that 30 minutes time, the mouse really has no particular interest in the snake other than to sniff at it. They don't attack with no provocation and when they've been hit by the snake, there's no time for defensive strategies!

[Pruitt]

well I was told that knocking them out was the best bet. by the guy who gave me the snake. I will just live feed next time. Does this make the snake more jumpy when your going to handle it. like it thinking your hand is food. or can they easily tell the dif.


BTW. how do you house your mice untill feeding time? I have mine in a small storage box with pine shavings and the bottom of a gatorade bottle for some h2o. is that good?


thanks for all the info.

[rabernet]

I don't notice mine more jumpy per-se, but they know that it's feeding day, for sure. I just drop the mouse on the opposite end of the enclosure that they are in, and the mouse is normally dispatched of in under 2 minutes (for my tub kids). Kashmire takes up to 20 minutes to snatch his prey. In that time, the mouse isn't really concerned with Kash, it's normally exploring the its new surroundings, grooming, etc.

Since I'm don't really have the space for breeding, I still purchase mice each week. I keep them in Kritter Keepers and I just bought a $20 mousie "condo" contraption from PetSmart that I keep about 10 mice in until feeding day. I buy mice the day after feeding day so that I can feed and water them for the week before feeding them. I also feel that gives them a chance to de-stress from the petstore experience where there can be up to 30 mice in a tank.

[hiero]

ive been feeding my adults medium size rats for awhile now live, and not once have they ever been attacked usually there is no time for the rat to attack. the only time they do attack is if your snake does not eat it and it just stays in the cage then the rat figures out something is wrong and attacks.. or the rat gets hungry

[bigboyslims]

I don't see a problem with stunning the mouse. Does that make me a bad person?

[Adam_Wysocki]

I don't see a problem with stunning the mouse. Does that make me a bad person?

It very well could in the eyes of the law.

Laws governing the humane treatment of animals vary from state to state and city to city.

With all of the problems around the country with cities and municipalities banning the ownership of all kinds of herps, I personally feel that anyone that chooses to own a herp should make a concerted effort to go above and beyond what is required by their local laws in regards to keeping their animals (and how their prey items should be treated). Anything less could be enough ammo for the animal rights activists to lobby and get those animals taken away. Our rights as reptile owners are the single greatest issue in the hobby today.

For those that choose to dispatch their own prey items prior to feeding, the American Veterinary Medical Associations (AVMA) 2000 report from their Panel on Euthanasia is an excellent guide.

http://www.avma.org/issues/animal_we...euthanasia.pdf

The difference between following the guidelines from a nationally recognized association like the AVMA and just bouncing rodents off of walls and floors until they die I would hope is obvious to everyone.

Just some thoughts.

-adam