Do You Feed In Or Out??

[rabernet]

I like to try to ensure that in no way do my snakes relate anything warm in their tanks with them with food. It seems like if all the feeding ritual consisted of was opening their enclosure and putting the food in... over time the act of opening the enclosure will be enough to trigger feeding mind set.

Well, I can tell you that over three years of feeding multiple snakes in their enclosure, and handling them minimally (cleaning, and occassionally if I want to hold a snake just because), none of mine have ever mistaken me for food, yet have a very aggressive feed response only on feeding day.

I follow routines, they're fed in the same order every feeding day, the room is pre-scented before feeding, when it's not pre-scented any other time, I don't smell like a rodent on non-feeding days. I've never had a snake come out of the tub in a feed mode except when feeding.

So - so far, three years hasn't conditioned them to be in a feeding mindset at any other time than on feeding day. Knock on wood, the only bites I've ever received have been defensive, not offensive strikes, and because I've startled them (if I'm sitting on the floor and letting them crawl, then suddenly grab them and they weren't expecting it for example). But I've never been bitten while getting them from their enclosures, or when I've been in their enclosure to change water, etc. It's always been out of the enclosure.

There's opinion on what might happen, and then there's actual hands on experience on what will happen when feeding in tubs with routines.

All I know is if the way you are feeding is working for you ... Why change... If it's tried and true

I agree!

[Reediculous]

All of them in their own enclosures.

Ditto!

[Texas Dan]

But the best things are Italian, right, Memes???

I think you meant some of the best things in life are Irish.

[MarkS]

The only good reason I know of for feeding outside the normal cage is the reason you originally gave. Making sure they don't swallow any substrate if you use a particulate substrate in your cages. But then again, thats one of the reasons I use newspaper as a substrate, so I can feed everything in their cages. It just never made sense to me to be picking animals up and moving them around when they have a full belly and are still in feeding mode.