Live food...why? Honestly & with facts!

[WingedWolfPsion]

Right, what Skiploder said. The nutritional benefit of live over FT is only slight. (However, ball pythons do get vitamin C, and all other nutrients, from their prey--the liver contains the vitamin C). I'm not sure whether B. Barczyk has completed his feeding trials that he introduced on Snakebytes, where he had one group of hatchlings eating prey dusted with a multivitamin, but I am curious about the results of that.
I have no feeling that my animals aren't getting good nutrition eating FT.

Keep in mind that if you feed cats in particular on a whole prey diet, you should NOT use frozen prey for them...or, if you do, you will NEED to add a thiamine supplement. I'm not sure whether that applies to ferrets or dogs.

It's certainly occurred to me that unused FT rodents could become dog snacks, but we don't currently have a dog, lol.

As for domestication...there is a LOT of confusion about what it actually is. We learned a tremendous amount about domestication from the fox farm experiments in Russia, and I would encourage anyone interested in it to look into them.

Essentially, domestication has a wide-ranging influence over an animal's endocrine system, personality, and even appearance. It does not necessarily have any effects on their instincts. Domesticated animals are docile, friendly or neutral towards human beings, and tend to have a variable appearance with many mutations of form, color, and pattern. (The fox farm foxes developed floppy ears, varied tail lengths, piebald coats, and more).

The sole selection process that caused all of these changes was merely selection for animals that did not show a fear or aggression response toward human beings. That's all.

In reptile species where selection for temperament has begun, the domestication process has also begun--corn snakes and leopard geckos are probably furthest along at this point, with relatively little wild blood being introduced (particularly in leopard geckos).
I would imagine that bearded dragons are also well on their way, particularly when one considers that no wild blood can be introduced into their current gene pools in the US and Europe.

All we need to do, to begin the domestication process in ball pythons, is start selecting for temperament, and stop introducing wild-origin snakes to our breeding programs.