Hello there!
I sure hope that controversial topics are okay.
This is a huge controversial topic in the community and I didn't find much on it here from cruising in 50+ threads today (boredom does weird things to you).
I genuinely want to hear your guys' thoughts and this thread is not meant to create harm or discuss highly controversial things just for the sake of arguments.
What are your thoughts on Frozen/Thawed VS Live mice/rats?
In my opinion, I would rather go for f/t over live any day. I completely understand wanting to give your snake a quality of life with stimulation and excitement (while also keeping all the nutrient a live rodent could provide) but I can't help but feel that it isn't entirely necessary. I find that it's much cheaper to buy and use f/t over live unless you have a huge collection and you need to breed your own rodents. Like, my little boy I feed about once every 7 days on weaned rats (still not sure about his exact weight, I bought a scale yesterday and I'm waiting for it to arrive) and it costed around $62 for 25 rats which can last him over 6 months give or take. That can certainly add up once you have more than 3 snakes, at which point I understand having to breed your own rodents and sometimes being lazy to actually kill it. I just feel it may be more risky than it should be.
I've heard a lot of horror stories of poor BPs that were lazily fed live rodents and left in their enclosure "until they got hungry", but you should always monitor it, right? The rodent can fight back or simply bite the snake because it's hungry (they're not very bright honestly, no more brighter than snakes though) and with time it can cause some serious problems with your snake.
Honestly many people are deterred by snakes because the thought of feeding f/t doesn't come to mind and you "MUST" feed them live or else they just won't eat. I used to think it was a necessity until I started to learn more about them and it really helps me love snakes even more than I do. I'm not saying I wouldn't feed my snake live if I absolutely had to, but I 100% prefer the safer option.
I think another irritation I find with live is that it's notoriously difficult getting BPs on f/t after they get used to live. They just don't see it as food and base the movements off of the animal more than the smell or heat.
The final problem I have is that so many breeders sell BPs that are feeding on live! I wish it was easier to transfer them lol.
Like I said earlier I completely understand when you absolutely must feed live because they don't see f/t as food or start a hunger strike. But in my opinion, you shouldn't have to feed live if you don't need to, right?
A thought I had is, would a
P L E A S E be respectful to me and other people! I know it's a controversial subject but we can all be mature here. Try to give reasonable opinions/facts, don't insult, and try to be nice about it! You can be respectful without lying.
Thank you
Edit: I ruined the title by pressing enter before I was done oh no-
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