My ball just ate a rat alive..

[TheSnakeGeek]

This is why I don't feed live. It's amazing to watch them eat, but man... I'd feel so bad for those mice. I'm pretty tender hearted. :-/

im a little tender hearted too. i love all animals. even have a couple sweetheart rats that are strictly pets. lol i felt bad for the little guy, but really i don't think he was conscious. he was knocked out enough for my snake to think he was dead and not put up a fight. i feed live because it works better for me. less waste if food is refused and i see an all around better feeding response from my snakes.

wow, that's an amazing picture. So let me get this straight, your snake struck the rat than let go of the rat with his mouth and is just coiling it to death with his body before he eats it? I never seen this before my ball python always keeps his mouth on the rat. Also, i never heard of a BP starting to eat the rat before its dead, don't they usually coil it until its dead than start swallowing it?

it didn't strike at all. the rat went to crawl over that part of the snake's body and it just wrapped it up real quick without striking. and i'm assuming it coiled it until it thought it was dead, and then after starting to eat it the rat kinda "came back to life," or rather, started breathing again.

[Royal Hijinx]

I have had something similar happen. I caught my Black Pastel het Hypo gal eating a rat that was still kicking a bit. It was odd to see, but there were no ill effects. I reckon she was just in a hurry. Also, I am sure it happens a lot more often than we think, but we just do not catch it. I made sure when I fed her any live after that, that after she coiled I would pull on the tail and make her REALLY coil it. No problems after that (and she is on F/T now).

As for the folks that go on and on about ALWAYS feeding F/T, when you have enough animals you will run in to some that will just not eat F/T, or you may be in the process of transitioning (there are also several other valid reasons that some folks feed live, but that is neither here nor there).

[OctagonGecko729]

Very much a freak occurance but it might've made a difference if you tugged a bit on the feeder with some tongs. I just recently had a 900g female not fully kill the rat and she started to chew, I tugged on the feeder while lifting the BP gently. She quickly wrapped and constricted.

The vast majority of the time the natural way is just as humane as CO2. If the prey is appropriately sized I have noticed loss of consciousness within 15-20 seconds from all my feedings. Not to mention the feeder isn't feeling too much due to the neuro chemicals that are racing through its body after getting grabbed.

[shorty21030]

I have actually had this happen to... it does suck... i have tried to switch to f/t but none of mine will take it. So i have to do live. I feel bad but I do know that it is the circle of life. But I always make sure I am sitting right there until they have grabbed the rat. But one of my girls grabbed a rat one time and so we thought killed it... she started to eat it and it actually came back to life and started kicking its back legs and trying to escape. She coiled around it right away when that happened but honestly she had this look of oh crap on her face when that rat came back to life haha... i did feel bad though....

[Crazymonkee]

I have to say.... if you are willing to own a snake you must be willing to feed live if need be. I love critters of all shapes and sizes, but I quickly came to terms with feeding live when all else failed for 2 months with my hatchling.
I would never do it as "entertainment" but if its between my snake eating or not...live it is.

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[kat_black181]

If I had to, I'd feed live. But, as long as my girl keeps pounding 'em down like a champ, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. She's a little piggy. Haha

[MrLang]

I have had an upsetting situation happen recently. A new hatchling that hasn't had its first meal yet is getting defensive and striking quite a bit without latching on and coiling. I feel really bad putting a baby rat into a situation where it can't escape and having the snake simply torment it without finishing the job. I feel bad for the baby snake too, who is apparently too scared to consider eating and also can't escape the situation.

So it goes...

[Crazymonkee]

If I had to, I'd feed live. But, as long as my girl keeps pounding 'em down like a champ, I'll keep doing what I'm doing. She's a little piggy. Haha

Well yes with no issues I would as well

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[Crazymonkee]

I have had an upsetting situation happen recently. A new hatchling that hasn't had its first meal yet is getting defensive and striking quite a bit without latching on and coiling. I feel really bad putting a baby rat into a situation where it can't escape and having the snake simply torment it without finishing the job. I feel bad for the baby snake too, who is apparently too scared to consider eating and also can't escape the situation.

So it goes...

Have you tried live? It may be only defensive striking because it doesn't realize it as food. My girl did that with f/t. When she struck the live it was sooo different and for keeps!

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[LLLReptile]

It's unfortunate, but with a good feeder, that does happen from time to time. I see it with kingsnakes and/or bullsnakes a lot more often than ball pythons, but sometimes they just get so excited about eating that they forget to finish constricting.

Not much you can really do for the rat, unfortunately, but hey - what a great feeding response on that ball python!

-Jen