You like mentioning that 25 minute mess as though it's a mark against all keepers who feed live. It's not really a common scenario. There are several things the lady could have done to remedy the situation with a quickness. If the 25 minutes isn't an exaggeration, which I highly doubt, I can almost guarantee she was the cause of the extended feed time.Originally Posted by Zincubus
I'm not a fan of snakes eating live prey before killing it either. All she had to do was grab the rat pup and jiggle it around a bit to get the snake to constrict. That failing, a little pinch on the snake to simulate a threat would surely have done the trick. Heck, she could have just thumped the pups head with her index finger for an instant kill.
This made me chuckle. Where do you think snakes encounter their prey in the wild? What do you think happens when a snake strikes true on a prey item in nature? I've found my fair share of scarred up snakes and I'm pretty sure people aren't catching them and dropping them in buckets with rodents.
The thing about snakes is they have no limbs. Give them 6 walls from which to gain leverage and they instantly have more control over the situation. I reckon there is even less chance of injury to a captive snake when offering live than your wild snakes that pounce on rodents when they just happen to cross paths while frolicking in fields.
Speaking of dear lives. You should keep some rodents and set a nanny cam on the rearing females. There is more infanticide than you probably think and they gruesomely eat them alive. In many species of mammals when a new male takes over a territory he instantly kills all nursing young simply to bring the females back into heat sooner. I'm just thinking, there are plenty more acceptable candidates for your lectures on unacceptability.
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