Oh I agree Sammie, I watch all my snakes and my monitors eat even their pre killed as I don't want any surprises and for my snakes, I keep them all on aspen so I have to pick off pieces as they are eating(yes I know not the best idea but that's a different post). And yeah Ive seen people use pencils, chopsticks, little dowels and stuff to pin a rats head if the snake grabs wrong. And yes I agree 100% to never leave a rat in the cage. When i used to feed my bearded dragon crickets before i started my dubia colony, i used to have to hunt down usually the 1 loose cricket and if i couldn't find it i would have to leave veggies overnight for the cricket and put my bearded dragon up on her hammock to sleep to avoid the cricket from biting the dragon. My point really was why bother taking that chance with a live rat as i have yet to see a snake that eventually wont take a pre killed or f/t doing the zombie dance method. Its just a risk that can be avoided all together.
I disagree though that the only rats that bite are hungry or unattended. Just last week, i was feeding my little girl and she gets rat pups which i do feed live since they cant do damage. Well i dropped it in and scooted it over by her hide box and she came out like greased lightning and grabbed it. Well she grabbed it by the ass and wrapped it up. Luckily it was small and couldn't hurt but if it was a medium rat and her 1 coil was about 1/2 down from the neck, that rat could have bit her. I mean like i said, an old herp guy i was talking to told me this, "If you don't think a rat can do damage to a snake, grab a rat in your hand and squeeze it slowly and see what happens. That rat will bite the bejebus out of your thumb or index finger as it is fighting for its life"
I'm not trying to preach don't feed live rodents. I'm just trying to give a heads up to newer people or people unfamiliar with what a live rat that is fighting for its life can do. Anyways, I'm not here to derail this thread so this is the last i'll talk about this topic. Best of luck whichever way you decide to feed
Very true Virginia about snakes being equipped to kill live prey and you can see some of the battle scars some of the big Anacondas and pythons have on them to show for it. Thing is wild animals immune systems are much stronger than a captive bred animals as our "pets" aren't exposed to all the germs of the wild so some captive bred animal with a slight weaker immune system will do fine in captivity, in the wild that same animal might not do well. But that's kind of a different topic haha.
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