I didn't think it would bother me. When I worked at the pet store we fed our snakes mice and it didn't bother me so I didn't think a rat would be any different. We fed our girl this past weekend. She's ten and has always eaten live, so even though I know the safety benefits of feeding f/t I wasn't going to make the switch on our first feeding. After feeding her live-I don't want to do it again. It made me so sad. Yes I know all about the food chain and what snakes do in the wild. Thing is-this snake isn't in the wild. The rat screamed 3 times and was obviously afraid. That's what bothered me. I'd rather she sneak up on it and it be done and over with before the rat knew what hit him.

So I started looking into how to transition snakes that feed live to f/t. First I'll have to start with rats that have just been killed. Lucky for me I won't have to do it, there's a pet store pretty close to my house that will do it for me. Then after a few weeks of that I can transition to actual f/t. (If that's even an option for us since we're fostering and she might already be gone)

I know she has to eat, and I will make sure she does. AND, I am not a vegetarian and I know where my meat comes from...but I really don't like the idea of the animal being in fear before it dies. It really hurt my heart to hear that.