My first ball python got a bad bite on a medium rat, grabbed a leg instead of the face, she still constricted it, but since she had a poor bite angle, it took longer than usual to suffocate the rat, and the rat had its hind leg free to scratch in desperation at my Snake’s head. Finally the rat died, but my python had a bloody scratch on her head. Luckily my python wasn’t a scaleless morph, but a tough normal and the scratch healed very quickly and the scales were whole again after her next shed.
A scratch by an adult rat is no big deal, but a good solid bite by adult rat or rabbit teeth could surely kill a snake! My friend’s red tailed Boa was chewed to death by a rat, but this was a case of stupidly leaving the live rat in the cage overnight with no supervision and the Boa wasn’t hungry.
Bottom line is that frozen or live are both safe as long as the person feeding is not an ignoramus.
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