I feed live to all my ball pythons except my albino, and that's only because I don't like seeing any blemishes on him, like scratches from a kicking rodent. It doesn't hurt them, their scales are designed and do protect them.
I've fed well over 15K live prey, with no issues or injuries. I don't have a calculator handy to do the percentages, but even if I had say 3 significant injuries in 15K feedings, it's much less than a 1% risk of injury. It's something like .0003% chance.
I have no desire to thaw out 60+ rodents every week, nor the time to do the zombie dance to 60+ snakes.
Ball pythons are well designed to quickly and efficiently dispatch their prey. I open a tub, drop rat in, listen for the thump, and repeat - 59 more times.
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