Quote Originally Posted by beeze View Post
I feed my BP live. He will not take f/t. I have tried so many times. He will go as far as laying on top of the f/t to show me he isn't having it. Live is what I use, I can't bring myself to stun or kill his food on my own. I monitor him the whole time he is feeding. Once he starts to ingest his food, then I give him his privacy, but still check on him. Some snakes are picky, mine is one of them. I also feel like allowing him to have live lets him retain some of his natural instincts. I too have read horror stories, but if the live feeding is done with care and diligence, I don't see anything wrong with it. I feed my BP, atm, live adult feeder mice or rat fuzzies if the pet store in town has them. I've not run into any trouble. Granted, my snake is not at the size to take larger meals yet, but, I don't think I will be switching to f/t any time soon.
My snake is the exact same. I also tried more than once and it didn't eat one. But it has eaten almost 10 live mice. Well, they were alive before she expertly killed em. It kills them in the hide or just outside the hide most the time, but has come out of the hide to pursue one. I peak in till I hear that squeal ( from the bite ) Aside from the bite I don't think the prey suffers much it struggles till it goes unconscious then into a sleep of death. My future concern is getting the rat out of the enclosure if it isn't eaten without getting bite by a rat which can be serious for me I hear. ( Rat bite fever ) It is no problem or worry with mice, and I use rubber/cloth gloves. Can some of you very experienced feeders tell me how to safely retrieve a live rat out of the enclosure. This is where keeping the rat calm becomes even more important. For my sake and the snakes as well.
I have a 10 gal aquarium to keep the live mouse (or some day rat) alive and well till I try to re-feed. I don't really want to go to rat but feeding mice might get very expensive when the snake gets larger. Please give me and others reading any advice you wish to help me concerning the putting in and possible having to remove the live rat.