Question about feeding

[HelpSatan]

Hi! I have a 0.1 Pastel YellowBelly I purchased from a breeder about 6 months ago. She's now about 100 g, and eating large hoppers/medium mice. However, she REFUSES to eat frozen thawed. I was going to continue feeding her live, but at some point her prey will get too big, and I don't want them to hurt her. What's the best way to continue feeding her live without putting her in danger? Thanks so much!

P.s. If any of you have advice on how to regulate tank temp without shelling out a bunch of cash, that would be awesome.

[M.P.C]

The danger in feeding live only exist with a neglegent owner, they are built to slay rodents and do so very efficiently... Dont feed a starving prey and do not leave it in the cage unattended untill its been dispatched. There are tons of people who feed live into and threw adult hood

[LittleTreeGuy]

What was your method for attempting to feed F/T? This could impact her feeding response.

P.s. If any of you have advice on how to regulate tank temp without shelling out a bunch of cash, that would be awesome.

Can you elaborate more on this, or better yet, start a different thread for it? How/what are you using to heat now? If you mean, is there an affordable thermostat available, yes, you can find them for around $30-$40, but you are much better off with a trusted name brand and spending $100.

[Zincubus]

What was your method for attempting to feed F/T? This could impact her feeding response.

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Very good point .

[PitOnTheProwl]

Feed what she will eat and be responsible about it.

What are your temperatures and what are you using for a heat source?

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Live feeding is about being responsible and knowledgeable.

I feed 200/250 or so live prey every month (that's 2400 to 3000 a year and only including breeder animals) and I have done so for YEARS without any incident, it's not luck it's know how.

A few keys to successful live feeding.

Make sure that the feeder is well fed and well hydrated, if you buy your feeder from the store offer food and water before feeding.

Pre-scent the room by leaving the prey near the enclosure 30 min to an hour before feeding.

Do not offer a prey that is too large because they can eat large prey does not mean they need to or should.

Offer in the enclosure.

Do not stress or stun the feeder.

Remove the feeder if not eaten within 10/15 min.

Etc

[Sensismell]

You can also try switching over to rats. Pups are about the size of an adult mouse and are still harmless babys. It will also help you in the future instead of feeding multiple mice one med rat will do.

[Caspian]

Even if being careful, bites may happen feeding live. If they do, they just need to be kept clean and keep an eye on them. Miqula, my Super Pastel, won't eat anything but live - and her last feeding, she somehow managed to grab her mouse by the tail. Usually she's great with a neck bite and immobilization. This time, she got hold of the tail... and the tip of the tail, at that, and wasn't going to let go just because of it. Before I could do anything about it, she'd coiled on the tail and body - but in the process, she got several small bites on her belly and tail. She had the mouse dead and eaten within minutes, but she does have some bite marks. That was five days ago. Since then she's shed - a complete shed, eyecaps to tailtip, though she managed to shred it into pieces in the process of it coming off - and with her in a nice clean tub on unprinted newsprint paper the bites are almost completely gone now and they never seemed to bother her at all.

[emilys_exotics]

Both of my bp's reject frozen. They have eaten live just fine since they were hatchlings. As long as you wach them, they'll be fine on live. Andyes. Sometimes small injuries happen, but if they were started on live they should be pretty immune to it. One of my ball pythons was bitten by a rodent but it didn't seem to phase her and wasn't a bad bite(: