I feed most of my snakes live but what i do to insure their safety is feed them rat pups and rat weanlings. They are much larger and more nutritious than mice and are not able to do harm to my snakes. Some of my snakes will eat perkilled most of the time but most of them prefer live and like any parent I like to give my babies what they want. For instance last night I fed some of my larger snakes 2 and 3 rat pups. I breed my own rats, which are much easier to breed than mice(mice need specific temps to breed) and even the pinkies are perfect for baby BP's. I had a guy call me last night asking about a pastel I'm selling and he told me a rat chewed his pastel's face anf killed him!!!!!! Go for the rat pups