Feeding inside tub

[anatess]

There is no reason to feed outside the enclosure

I can see why people like to feed in a separate container for cleanliness purposes (rat poop all over the snakes enclosure/blood/etc), but I feed in the enclosure because I don't want them to strike at me every time I take them out because they think it's feeding time. I also don't want to chance a regurgitation. My snakes are only strikey (?) on feeding day, and they have never actually struck at me... I can just tell they're hungry because they look like they're going to.

I feed mine outside the tub because of the aspen bedding I keep him on. I just don't want him accidentally swallowing any of it. I've been doing it that way for 7 years without any problems.

well, feeding outside of the enclousure is a better way of not teaching your snake that when the lid opens a mouse/rat/rabbit will be dropped in, i mean i have fed in the same enclousure before but i dont like to make that connection.

I feed my whole collection in their enclosures, and nobody's ever bitten me when I opened their tub. As long as you're not only opening the lid at feeding time, I think they learn quickly that your hand doesn't always equal food.

Personally I think that with BP's shy nature, it's better not to uproot them before a meal. Hard enough getting them to eat consistently, without adding stress at feeding time. Maybe the separate tub makes sense with large and/or aggressive snakes, but not so much with a Ball.

If you have a decorative vivarium full of stuff like this:


... and you feed live rats, you can't feed inside the enclosure - the rat has a lot of places to hide, some inaccessible to the snake, therefore "hunting" will take a long time and you will have too many things in the way of your tongs in case you have to do some intervention (to prevent a rat bite).

Now, if you have a tub or some enclosure without tons of stuff in it, or if you feed F/T or pre-killed you can feed in the enclosure without needing to move the snake to a separate feeding tub. They will not associate opening the tub with feeding because, hopefully, you change out water/clean poop/change bedding/and all other maintenance stuff on a regular basis and not just on feeding time.

Lolo76 made a great point that moving a snake to a separate tub adds an element of stress that you can avoid by feeding in his enclosure. For us who prefer a decorative vivarium, we take on that bigger responsibility and do the best that we can.