Quote Originally Posted by SatanicIntention
Get that rat out of there! NOW! If she/he gets hungry, what else is there to eat except for snake? Either take it back to the pet store and get store credit for future prey items or put it in its own cage with food and water. Your snake could get very badly injured if you leave a hungry, thirsty rodent in the cage for days on end. 30 minutes, no, hours/days, yes.

Feeding live is fine and if it works for you and your snake, then keep doing what you are doing. If you supervise and feed live responsibly, the snake won't get a scratch on him.

I feed 9 of my snakes live food, the Ball Pythons get mice that I breed and raise myself and the Boa Constrictor gets 4 week old live rabbits. The 2 corn snakes and the rat snake eat both live and frozen/thawed mice/rats. They all do just fine each and every week.

If the snake doesn't show interest in 20-30 minutes of the rodent being placed in the cage, remove the rodent and try again in one week. Leaving a prey animal in the snake's cage for longer than that just stresses the snake out and predisposes them to not want to eat. Stressed snakes won't eat.
I've been feeding the rat, putting slices of bread in with it. But I didn't know that the live rat will stress out the snake. Thanks for the information. I'll ask my dad to take me back to the pet store tomorrow to bring her back.

Now, when I feed Skittles, I normally just pull out most of the stuff out of his cage and put the rat in, that's okily dokily right? Sorry I seem so ignorant on the subject, but at least I'm asking questions now instead of never right?