The feeding tongs I use are either 12" tweezers, or 18" non-locking hemostats; I also still have 24" from keeping hots, no longer do that, but useful now & then for fishing things out of sink drain etc.
You really want NON-locking hemostats to feed snakes, so they don't hurt their mouth before you can release. Either kind I use will slide out easily. The locking hemostats have teeth that ratchet together.
Also, when I feed snakes, I hold the rodent by the back end to make it dance, & try to aim the head so that's what the snake grabs. It's no fun trying to get tongs away from a hungry 7' constrictor...