Best Food for BP's

[Beantown Reptiles]

I've been feeding f/t rats to my clan with the exception of the one or two that simply refuse. I'm actually thinking of going back to live mice because I hate having to heat the f/t. I don't have a good place to do it and most of the time I have to put them in warm water. Then the stupid bag leaks and I have warm wet rat, yuck. I think I would prefer to drop in a mouse and let nature take it course.

How does everyone else heat their f/t?

[Haitun]

I feed mine frozen rats and frozen mice after thawing them of course.


I saw a few videos of people feeding hamsters to their ball pythons... Is that bad to do? Besides the fact that hamsters probably cost a lot more.

[JohnNJ]

How does everyone else heat their f/t?

I take the frozen rodents out of the freezer the morning of feeding day and put them in the fridge. They are completely thawed by the time I get home from work. You could do it the night before also.

I then place them on top of the tanks for 30-60 minutes to prescent and get them to room temp.

I use a heat lamp (red bulb) to heat them up a little before feeding.

I agree with you about the water. I tried it and don't that method anymore.

JohnNJ

[Moriar]

the best food is what they will eat consistantly!

[Bundu Boy]

I've been feeding f/t rats to my clan with the exception of the one or two that simply refuse. I'm actually thinking of going back to live mice because I hate having to heat the f/t. I don't have a good place to do it and most of the time I have to put them in warm water. Then the stupid bag leaks and I have warm wet rat, yuck. I think I would prefer to drop in a mouse and let nature take it course.

How does everyone else heat their f/t?

I defrost mine in warm water for 20-30 minutes with a warm water top-up 5 minutes before feeding, I then pat them dry with a cloth and introduce... works pretty well as the whole body of the prey is heated through.

I struggled a bit when I was using a heat lamp to warm up the head of a defrosted mouse/rat... Also by using the water I can warm up a heap of mice/rats if needed, useful for when I feed my lot on the same day....

Just don't make the mistake I did, and that is to use boiling temp water from the kettle to heat up the prey, man it was sick.... the belly of the prey swelled up and when I picked them up for feeding they popped.... I almost puked there and then........

[zackw419]

ASF's for sure. Thats what they eat in the wild.


But, Rats and mice are alot more convinient to access.

[truthsdeceit]

I don't know if it's been said already.. I didn't read the whole thread. But.. it has been said that rats are more nutritional than mice...ect. This seems to me to be an old wives tale. I've been told it many times even believed it for a while till someone pointed out that there is no scientific evidence that a rat is more nutritionally valuable than other rodents. They're bigger so therefore carry more of everything, but snakes do just fine on whatever rodent you can get them to eat. As long as your feeding the whole item.

[spalding11]

i heard of someone feeding their ball python cooked chicken cut up in small pieces...

[truthsdeceit]

i heard of someone feeding their ball python cooked chicken cut up in small pieces...

If they acctually did this the snake probably died.

Chicken is sometimes fed to snakes, usually in the form of whole chicks but Cooked meat is BAD, very very BAD for snakes don't do it.

Just stick with rodents, it's natural healthy and easy to provide.

[spalding11]

oh no, I DON'T DO THIS...and it suggests cooked chicken, cockroaches, mice, rats, etc in snakes for dummies...

(i work at a library...i see a lot of uninformational books)