The kinds of snakes this method is meant for is for large (10+ feet) snakes or really aggressive or super food-motivated snakes. Usually, most balls are exempt from this, but as long as he feeds well, no reason to change it. But just for your information, they are pretty good at telling the difference unless you reek of mouse/rat. Just use hemostadts instead of your hand if you need to manuever the prey items and you should be fine. The one time i got bit was using my hand to move an FT mouse-really dumb idea. XD it hurt, but more because of the constriction than the chomping. Just move slow and steady around your guy and he'll be fine... c;