Is live feeding really that dangerous?

[rlditmars]

But giving them live is just reckless in my opinion.

I feel this statement is a bit hyperbolic. Driving 10 over the speed limit is adding risk. Driving 50 over the speed limit is reckless. I am in total agreement with you that feeding live adds risk to the animal. As I posted earlier I currently have a snake in the hospital because of a feeding gone badly. And it was not a lack of responsibility on my part. That being said, feeding live rats to animal that would eat live rodents in the wild is not reckless. It is adding risk. In the wild there is no way for a snake to avoid the risk of being bitten in the activity of a kill. In captivity we can choose and the mitigating factor is we have a vested interest in the welfare of the animal and any risk we can minimize is worthy of consideration.

As far as natural goes, I think we can all agree there is nothing natural about this hobby other than it involves an organism. If we were truly trying to duplicate nature then we would all be breeding normals in diorama style enclosures, allowing the females to maternally incubate the eggs. We would be feeding our snakes wild caught rodents in the dead of night. Where's the fun in that? We are, as humans always do, manipulating something to satisfy our whimsy. The differing of opinions is about our own comfort levels more then the animals. What are we comfortable doing, providing, trying? We can never know if we are getting it absolutely right because the snake can't tell us and the evidence is often not quantifiable. But we are usually left with no doubt when we get it wrong. Just my $0.02

[MalachiJ]

This I must quibble with.

The way we feed live to our snakes is nothing close to natural as in nature, the snake and mouse/rat do not find themselves confined in an area that is a couple square feet, unable to escape.

It's like saying that, because it's natural, I should release live rabbits and fawns in my living room for my dog to kill and eat for her dinner. I'm also not going to release song birds, rabbit pups and rodents for my cats to hunt and eat because that, too, would be 'natural'.

There are understandable reasons for feeding live. 'Natural' is not one of them.

Those are domesticated animals. You can't compare a snake to a dog or a cat. Obviously if people are having an astronomically better feeding rate with live, they prefer live! Have you ever had a dog that just won't eat because he's crazing a live fawn?

[tbowman]

Those are domesticated animals. You can't compare a snake to a dog or a cat. Obviously if people are having an astronomically better feeding rate with live, they prefer live! Have you ever had a dog that just won't eat because he's crazing a live fawn?

I don't think the snakes care either way if the rodent is live or dead. There are a couple of reasons it may seem that they prefer live. One being that the rodent may not be prepared properly therefore the snake does not recognize it as a food item. The other, being that Bp's are very timid snakes and I believe the human presence involved when feeding F/T will cause some snakes not to go for it. This would explain why many times people have success just leaving a f/t rodent in the cage. Look at almost any other species of commonly kept snake that aren't as timid as Bp's and there aren't often problems feeding f/t. If snakes truly preferred live, then there would be no market for frozen rodents.

Not advocating one way or the other, I just think it's a bit silly to say that all snakes prefer live food. There are a few things that tell a snake that something is edible,

Scent
Movement
Heat signature (in the case of most pythons)

Being ambush hunters I don't think that most snakes really hesitate when a food item comes near them. If it's warm, moving, and smells like food, they are driven by instinct to eat it. There is a reason they are called opportunistic hunters.

Gain some experience feeding some other species of python and you'll find that a lot of them will have the rodent wrapped up before they discern whether or not it is live or dead.

Of course I could be completely wrong about all of this.

[Spiritserpents]

I wish you luck with your temperament experiment, but I'm honestly in doubt as to whether snakes have the proper mental hardwiring for true 'domestication'. Usually domestication involves a component of social dependence on humans for food or shelter, and I just don't know if I think snakes
have the capability to truly connect those things with us. I think you could definitely breed for bolder/shyer/calmer/whatever snakes, but I'm not sure if it would really qualify as domestication in the true sense of it since they can't really be 'social' with humans. (Not saying they can't interact, but I don't believe they have the capability to think of things that aren't in their immediate environment; like I honestly believe I cease to exist to my snakes once I leave the room)

I'm breeding specifically for docility, which I figure is about as close to 'domesticated' as something like a snake or fish is going to get. I doubt many people consider Oranda goldfish, for example, to be anything but 'domesticated', partly because we've made them entirely unsuitable to live in the wild.

My foundation sire is so crazily calm that you can lift his lips up to show off his teeth and he doesn't react at all, before/during/after. He's my go-to snake for interactions with people who are nervous about snakes, even though he's also my largest at 5'6". The babies he sired last year were much calmer than my typical hatchlings and I kept back the least reactive girl, who also happens to a moose in the making like her dad.

Re: prefering live-

Not always. Not even mostly. My first corn snake freaked the 'f' out when I stuck a live rat pink in with him once. He takes f/t like a champ, and always 'kills' it. Most of mine will happily take f/t from my fingers. I think it partly depends on the species, how long its ancestors have been in captivity (there were early issues with some corn lines being lizard eaters and switching them to rodents was a pain... kinda like the issues hoggies have/had), and individual temperament.

[Skiploder]

And where is the source list for every answer you've ever given? This is not even an argument on if f/t or fresh is better, they want to know if live is bad. My answer was a technicality that instead of live that can lead to injury, feed fresh dead. And then I continued to explain my own reasons as to why I personally don't give f/t as they're looking to take their animals off of it, none of which include giving a snake a live rat to be strangled alive to fill the idea that the animal needs to do so for some gratification to an instinct or because it's more 'natural'. Giving them live puts your animals life in danger. If they don't like thawed, give them fresh dead and poke at it. But giving them live is just reckless in my opinion.

I'm done with this and will not be responding to this thread again.

I usually don't defend people on here - but I guess there's a first time for everything.

You can feed whatever the hell you want. Frozen, live, zombified, freshly killed, freshly frozen, bagged, tagged and t-bagged. If it works for you and your snake, so much the better.

However when Eric politely asked if there was any basis for the link you provided, you got defensive and down right cranky. You got real pissy with perhaps one of the few people on this forum who gives honest, thoughtful, helpful and generally balanced answers without any snark. Instead of packing up your toys and leaving in a huff, use this as an teachable moment. In any forum, some people will question the answers/advice you give.

If it's a personal preference - say so.

If you are doing something based on a belief - make sure that belief is rooted in fact.

Then be prepared to back up that basis.

I can pretty much guarantee you that anything that Mr. Alan recommends based on science, he can back up with corroborating data...

[MalachiJ]

I don't think the snakes care either way if the rodent is live or dead. There are a couple of reasons it may seem that they prefer live. One being that the rodent may not be prepared properly therefore the snake does not recognize it as a food item. The other, being that Bp's are very timid snakes and I believe the human presence involved when feeding F/T will cause some snakes not to go for it. This would explain why many times people have success just leaving a f/t rodent in the cage. Look at almost any other species of commonly kept snake that aren't as timid as Bp's and there aren't often problems feeding f/t. If snakes truly preferred live, then there would be no market for frozen rodents.

Not advocating one way or the other, I just think it's a bit silly to say that all snakes prefer live food. There are a few things that tell a snake that something is edible,

Scent
Movement
Heat signature (in the case of most pythons)

Being ambush hunters I don't think that most snakes really hesitate when a food item comes near them. If it's warm, moving, and smells like food, they are driven by instinct to eat it. There is a reason they are called opportunistic hunters.

Gain some experience feeding some other species of python and you'll find that a lot of them will have the rodent wrapped up before they discern whether or not it is live or dead.

Of course I could be completely wrong about all of this.

I was specifically referring to bps. Everything I've read about picky eaters (never experienced, i feed live) states that if f/t is not working even if you have the temps right and try different presentations, live usually works much better. Unlike some of the experienced people on here, I haven't bred 100s-1000s of snakes so this isn't based on experience as much as research. From my point of view a snake does 1 thing and 1 thing only, survive. Which means it basically just eats, sleeps/hides, and mates. So to me, those are important aspects in the mindset of your animal, and it is the most natural part of owning a snake. So if I can, I let them eat live, mate, and give them plenty of great hides. Maybe I'm just crazy. To each his own

[Zincubus]

Yes if not done responsibly, but it is safe if done responsibly as well.

It's about being educated and knowing how to properly feed live.

I feed 250 live preys a months (not counting hatchlings, that's a drop in a bucket compare to some) and have done so for 9 years with my breeders and holdbacks and NEVER had an issue.

The keys to success

Pre-scent the room bring the feeder near the enclosure 30 min prior to feeding.

Give food and water to the feeder if you purchased it from a store.

Do not stress the feeder.

Do not feed an oversized prey

Drop the feeder and remove if uneaten after 15 to 20 min

So do you have to watch over each snake until its eaten the prey safely ??

That must take much longer than simply defrosting and offering .

[John1982]

So do you have to watch over each snake until its eaten the prey safely ??

That must take much longer than simply defrosting and offering .

You only have to keep an eye out until the rodent is safely dead - much less time than it takes to thaw. I'm not sure how this makes effective rhetoric for your anti live campaign? More time in the snake room sounds like something for the "pros" list to someone who enjoys spending time interacting with and observing their reptiles. Let's say you give a snake 10-15 minutes to dispatch a prey item before abandoning a feed. Seems to me, feeding live only takes 10-15 minutes longer than feeding f/t and you don't have to thaw anything out. Maybe it takes a bit less than that as you also don't have to employ any of the "tricks" used to get some animals to accept.

[Lizardlicks]

The thing about thawing taking longer though is... I can walk away from thawing rats. They aren't going anywhere, I stick them in a cup of cold water and go do something else that needs doing for 20-30 minutes, then come back and spend another 5 heating them until they temp correctly (I always temp with a gun to make sure they're defrosted and heated through). Then I just toss the heated dead feeder in and the girls tag 'em as soon as they get a bead on 'em.

So honestly it's about 25 minute prep and then less than a minute per snake (my girls take them just that fast, but you can usually tell through experience if the snake is going to take that day or not, so it doesn't take 15-20 minutes) another 5 ish for clean up (washing the feeding tray, tongs, putting stuff away, etc.) and I'm done.

VS properly fed live as deb described in which you have to fed and water the feeder first, take it into the room to scent it and get the snakes hyped for 30 minutes, watch each snake kill the rat (which granted, doesn't take that long once the snake does strike and coil; I had to watch Strudel when she was still on live and they are efficient at what they do, but it still took longer than tossing in the dead and heated feeder) remove the rat after 15 to 20 minutes if the snake hasn't eaten it, and then you've got a live feeder at the end of the day that you need to continue to house and feed and water (if someone else doesn't take it)...

Yeah, I'm not entirely convinced that live feeding is all that quicker.

[200xth]

What do the big breeders do? The guys with 100, 500, 1000+ snakes...are they feeding live or FT? If live, are they experiencing all kinds of snake deaths and injuries from their food attacking them?