Quote Originally Posted by sunshinenorcas View Post
You can't use those kinds of absolutes though, especially with animals. If an animal can eat f/t, then by all means- yes. F/t is the way to go. If it won't switch then it gets tricky.
For example, my first foray into snakes was a KSB. I got her in october and she refused f/t until december. Then she refused food until April when I finally gave her a live fuzzy. I tried EVERYTHING I could think off. Braining, chicken broth, pre-killed, in the tank, out of the tank, lengthening weeks between attempts ... nothing worked. Nothing. In that case, yes, I gave her a live fuzzy. My hope was that she would get on a schedule of eating live and once it was consistent, I would try again with f/t- unfortunately she got out and passed away before I could try that.

I don't like feeding live, and if I don't have to I won't- Tali is getting fat and happy on f/t and I'm fine with that. But if I had a snake who snubbed everything I could think of, I would feed live and I'm not going to judge another keeper for their choice, especially with hard eaters- there is a point where it's more important that the animal is eating then if it's on the diet you want.
But a snake will see no difference between a freshly killed (and I mean like... Cervical dislocation in front of the cage, and then popping that sucker in their cage immediately after) and a live rat.