Is live feeding really that bad?

[MysticMoon001]

OK I'd like to share a bit of my limited experience when it comes to feeding live or F/T. I, personally, do not have any experience feeding live rodents to either of my snakes. My new addition took his first f/t with me which his breeder told me that he was readily pounding. However, I witness live feedings through a good friend of mine that actually introduced me to the idea of owning snakes.

My friend has a few bps that only accept live. I asked her why she fed them live and wondered if they could convert. She assured me that they were only going to eat live because that is what they like. I asked her to further explain. She tried everything when it came to f/t. Heating, scenting, more heating but using a different way, zombie dancing, moving them to another tub and waiting another week or two, asf, etc. All of those methods gave her no results when it came to her beloved picky animals and she was wasting money. Finally, my friend gave in and gave them both live. BAM! Her snakes struck without hesitation and this is the method she stuck with from then on. I asked her if she ever had anything happen to her animals from live rats. My friend, then, gave me the run down of that as well. Since she only has a few bps, it isn't an issue for her to monitor each ones feeding. Her feeding schedule for them also takes place on a day that she is off of work. She told me that so long as I am there supervising and ready to intervene, my bp will be fine on live. I should have nothing to worry about. She even pulled out one of her bps that had a small scar from a rat bite and told me to just remember where that scar was. A couple sheds later, the scar was gone! My friend reassured me that bps are very hardy creatures.

My friend advised me that if I was going to get a bp, to remember that they sometimes do not conform to what we want them to do. They are animals with their own set of preferences and we just have to go with THEIR flow. I took those words to heart when I was thinking of getting a bp.

So do I think feeding live is really that bad? No. Plenty of responsible people feed live without significant problems. Do I feed live? No. I prefer f/t merely for convenience sake. A small apartment equals no room for breeding bins for rats. Am I prepared to feed live because my snake wants one or two or tons? Yes I am because of the advice and reassurance I got from my friend. Anyway, that is my limited experience on the subject of live vs f/t.