Is live feeding really that bad?

[wolfy-hound]

I've fed live for ten years and I've never ever had a eye injury to a snake. In fact, the very worst I've ever seen was the equivalent of a scratch.

And BTW, a small injury like a rodent bite heals up and you wouldn't be able to even see it after one shed. So the whole "scars and scratches" from a rodent bite is sort of false, unless you manage to see it right after it occurs. Even severe injuries tend to heal over and disappear after several sheds. I have personal experience with a severe "injury" as I had a snake that was put on a respirator(long story) and the vet inserted the tube through the side. You couldn't tell where that 2 inch long incision was after a year. A rat bite is generally under 1/8 inch. You'd be hard pressed to find it fresh.

Live feeding doesn't cause problems in general. Leaving unattended prey can be dangerous and even fatal. Feeding larger prey like rabbits or adult rats could result in a bite.

Snakes are individuals and yes some snakes ARE stupid when it comes to hunting and striking prey. I don't care how many millions of years it took to get the snake to this point, there's always a doofus in every generation. I've had a few that I prekilled prey for because they were idiots about striking in a bad spot, grabbing rodents by the rear and not wrapping the torso, resulting in a paniced rat trying to bite everything. Because I was supervising, I could quickly intervene. No injury occurred and I killed the rat quickly. After realizing this snake was just bad at killing, I began prekilling the rat and the problem was solved.

All this above having been said, no snake has ever been injured by a frozen/thawed prey item. Also, no one that I've ever heard of has gotten so attached to a frozen/thawed prey item that they ended up wanting to keep it as a pet instead of feeding it to the snake.

If you want to feed F/T, do it. There are some dangers to feeding F/T too. What about not thawing it completely? What if you leave it sitting out and it rots? What if it was killed using a drug instead of the safe CO2? Should that make people never use F/T prey? Of course not! You just feed F/T properly and responsibly! It's no different for feeding live. You do it right and you pay attention.

Or you do the zombie rat dance with a F/T prey for each snake every week.