Feeding Opinion/Advice

[TheLuftGator]

I honestly feel like I might accidentally open a can of worms, but I am going to ask anyway.

"What are your opinions of someone who feeds Live?"

I ask this because in a month I'll be trying to acquire a Ball Python, and most likely was going to stick with Live since it was all I know... And for some reason Frozen/Thawed doesn't sit right with me.. I am not a first-timer with snakes but it kind of feels like it since I've not had a snake since 2011. My first snake was a Corn Snake her name was Rosie I had her from 2001-2011, and while under my care she ate Live mice with no accidents. I always supervised the feeding, If Rosie did want to eat (which was rare) I would put the mouse in a separate cage for another day w/food+water, and I held the mouse by the tail and only let go when I knew Rosie had a good grip on it. Feeding Live didn't effect her personality whatsoever she was incredibly docile and never actually bit me... though she loved to poop on me. :c

My first was a crash course a lot of trial and error and looking back I feel like I got blessed with a great Snow Corn. Because all I had was a small book on Corn Snakes, I didn't have a computer to look up forums like this or any other useful guide to go off of.


I am mainly asking this because I have spoken to friends who own and breed a lot of reptiles primarily snakes. mainly getting advice from them since I'm planning on getting a snake. And the minute I ask they kind of hold a invisible knife to my neck and say "Don't you dare feed Live!" and go on a hour long rant... even though that wasn't the topic I was going to bring up. I am just hoping asking here wont lead to the same thing. XD

[ROACH]

A LOT of us feed "Live". There is nothing wrong with it as long as your responsable enough to watch it and make sure no harm is done to the snake.

[TheLuftGator]

Thanks for the input.

Definitely agree with the Responsibility and Supervision it's a must, even with my first snake I knew that (though I enjoyed watching it eat) lol

[ROACH]

Yea it seems alot of people are either Afraid or dont like to see a live animale get killed by another. All of my snakes are on live, of course sometime I wish they were on F/T just for the fact I can drop and go. I sit in the room till all have been killed or removed. But for me it takes the same amount of time for feeding both ways. Now this is JMO, but I think if they have A Lot of snakes to feed, it may just be easier for them to feed F/T than Live. Hell I dont know if I could handle feeding 50+ snakes Live, I think I would try F/T then.

[steve_r34]

I love feeding live ... I do it ad much as I can .. its just eaiser to me then warming rats up .. n I like to watch them hunt

[TheLuftGator]

I can understand that but that's life, suck it up and drive on. (but that's just me).
I am probably not going to have a huge collection as some, so I wouldn't really have the issue.
So F/T would work for people with tons of Snakes but they may even be breeding their own stock of rodents.

[TheLuftGator]

I love feeding live ... I do it ad much as I can .. its just eaiser to me then warming rats up .. n I like to watch them hunt

I will say I do enjoy the good hunt when I did let the mouse scurry about but half the time Rosie always got them mid-air so the hunt was over in an instant.

[Pyrate81]

:sigh:

In some circles there is a stigma on feeding live to snakes. Snakes are efficient hunters and do well with acquiring prey/food. They do not feed on F/T in the wild so it is instinct to move on a live prey item(though I've seen snakes move on f/t which were laid in their enclosure).

When I first got into the snake hobby I thought the same things(it's a danger to the snake, it's inhumane, etc etc). When my 3 snakes at the time began refusing frozen/thawed, I switched to live prey. They were also starting to graduate from fuzzies to mice at the time which could be a factor. So live it was. My snakes were very good at hunting and killing(though Oreo liked to squeeze his prey against the water bowl or side of the enclosure), there were no incidents. For a long time when it would be feeding time for them, I'd sit and watch while I ate my lunch or dinner. It allowed me to watch my guys eat and also be entertained at the same time. Over time, the novelty of feeding live wore off and although I make sure they all eat, I'm more worried now that they do eat and wonder why if they don't.

Others have more XP but in my 12+ years of feeding live rodents to my snakes, I've had 1 incident in 1000s of feedings where a rodent(specifically a rat) was aggressive toward one of my snakes. It was removed from the snake's enclosure and a week later was devoured as I saw fit it would be for harming my snake.

The key in feeding live is knowing how your snakes handle specific prey items and how those prey items handle being in a snake's enclosure. My honduran milk snake eats rats but I don't like that he gets a few bites and scratches while constricting his prey so I keep him on mice or fairly small rats which I know won't harm him though he doesn't seem to mind a few battle scars while eating. He is a beautiful animal and I intend to keep him that way so smaller prey items is on the menu. One of my BPs wrapped a small-medium rat the first time I offered it to him but release it 10 seconds later cause it was either too big or cause I scared him with the flash of my camera(I was excited to see him eat a rat for the first time). I kept him on mice for almost 2 months then recently moved him up to small rats which he handles well.

All of my snakes are also fed in their enclosure which most people will dispel feeding in another enclosure is a myth. Allow your snake to hunt in its territory and know when friend or food is entering to be safe.

[Crazymonkee]

Absolutely nothing wrong with feeding live when done responsibly.

[ZacharyPoller]

I honestly feel like I might accidentally open a can of worms, but I am going to ask anyway.

"What are your opinions of someone who feeds Live?"

I ask this because in a month I'll be trying to acquire a Ball Python, and most likely was going to stick with Live since it was all I know... And for some reason Frozen/Thawed doesn't sit right with me.. I am not a first-timer with snakes but it kind of feels like it since I've not had a snake since 2011. My first snake was a Corn Snake her name was Rosie I had her from 2001-2011, and while under my care she ate Live mice with no accidents. I always supervised the feeding, If Rosie did want to eat (which was rare) I would put the mouse in a separate cage for another day w/food+water, and I held the mouse by the tail and only let go when I knew Rosie had a good grip on it. Feeding Live didn't effect her personality whatsoever she was incredibly docile and never actually bit me... though she loved to poop on me. :c

My first was a crash course a lot of trial and error and looking back I feel like I got blessed with a great Snow Corn. Because all I had was a small book on Corn Snakes, I didn't have a computer to look up forums like this or any other useful guide to go off of.


I am mainly asking this because I have spoken to friends who own and breed a lot of reptiles primarily snakes. mainly getting advice from them since I'm planning on getting a snake. And the minute I ask they kind of hold a invisible knife to my neck and say "Don't you dare feed Live!" and go on a hour long rant... even though that wasn't the topic I was going to bring up. I am just hoping asking here wont lead to the same thing. XD

So many people do live , some do both , its what ever your snake will do , you might buy a baby raised on frozen and won't take live and vice versa , i have one ball who only ate frozen his hole life and won't take live and i have another that will take only live or pre-killed (but thats a whole different topic pre-killed)