Just wondering how you guys feed your snakes live rodents. Do you drop them in the cage / tub and let them run around or do you hold them by the tail above the snake and wait for the strike? I held a live mouse over one of my young ball pythons and he got too close and the mouse bit the snake on the nose. I also had one mouse that ran around in the tub, the snake tried to get him but missed, then the mouse got real smart and kept wanting to jump out of the tub, I think I'm going to have to try a fresh killed with that smart mouse. For the last round of mice I used live weanling mice, seemed a bit safer and a bit slower than an adult (a bit dumber). Just wondering what your technique is for live.
Almost none of my ball pythons will eat frozen thawed except my normal that I got for free LOL. For the last batch of six weanlings for my six ball pythons I dropped them in the tub and closed them up. Then I opened them up about a half hour later, only one was left, so I held him by the tail and waited for the strike. Worked that time but just wondering if my technique is right... Not sure I'd try it with an adult mouse that could potentially hurt the snake closed up without supervision. I really like feeding live because if they don't eat then I can put them back in the rodent cage for next time. With frozen thawed if they don't eat I end up throwing thawed mice in the trash, threw out six adult mice at a time a couple weeks back. Now if I do frozen thawed I only thaw out one or two mice at a time and move them to several snakes to minimize my losses. I have a big king snake that will eat my shoe if I put it in there, but she is only big enough for one or two adult mice max. And she is getting real fat since my ball pythons are so picky LOL.
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