Sweet Deals on Other People's Problems

[Kevin_Hornby]

2. It prefers gerbils or African soft-furred mice. Just what you need; a snake on a special diet. Not only do gerbils and ASF mice tend to be quite a bit more expensive they are both notoriously more aggressive than typical lab rats (and mice). There is a stronger need to chaperone the feeding event when the predator is at increased risk of becoming the prey.

I can't speak for gerbils, but in my experience of breeding/feeding ASF's they seem to accept the fate of being fed to a snake a lot more than your typical lab rats. Whenever I feed rats I constantly have to babysit and make sure that the rat is not chewing on my snake, whereas with ASF's I can just toss them in and wait til I hear a thump. They don't scream, i've rarely seen them bite the snake, and in general they stay pretty calm and just wait to be eaten. I will freely admit, to people ASF's can and are mean, but in general they fear the snake and more often than not when actually struck, their tongue sticks out and they can't bite even if they wanted to. Now maybe I just have some really nice ASF's but I don't believe what you've posted is fair or accurate to say about them.