Honest opinions on feeding.

[Eric Alan]

Being knocked out in one blow is much less pain full to a rat/mouse then being bitten, constricted, rib bones cracked, organs punctured and then asphyxiated.

Slow down just a bit there. It's likely that prey actually tends to die more often, and more quickly than expected, from circulatory failure than by asphyxiation. It's been shown that some snakes actually have the ability to sense their prey's heart beat and adjust constriction pressure and duration accordingly. Because constriction is energetically costly to snakes, rarely will they exert enough energy on a prey item to break bones. They're very efficient rodent killers to say the least.