Quote Originally Posted by The Green Man View Post
As has been said already, there is no F/T - PK debate, so the best we can do as snake enthusiasts and owners is to decide what we're comfortable with when it comes to feeding our snakes. Here's the bottom line -- if you're going to keep snakes, you're going to have dead mice and rats in your home. How they get that way is a question only you can answer.

My story, to toss on the pile. Badoo, my regular BP, eats only live. He was fed, as are all the snake stock at PetSmart, F/T for the first few months of his life, and I switched him immediately to live-and-kicking prey. Here's why:

My first snake, Inferno, was a Tarahumara Mountain King. He ate F/T without a single problem for the first year of his life, but then suddenly turned up his nose at an F/T crew mouse and refused to touch them from there forward. I got about three good months out of PK, during which time I tried several different methods of prekilling and finally settled on CD for my preference. After those three months were over, my Tarahumara insisted on live prey, even though by then his killing instinct was a wash. Someone said "aggressive flopping", and that's pretty accurate. After a few really touch-and-go moments, during which I'm not ashamed to say I employed the squeeze-to-death-with-tongs killing method in order to save my snakes life in an emergency, I was forced to start -- and spend the next six years -- feeding an adult kingsnake live fuzzies by the bucketload because a mouse with its eyes open and it's wits about it was too much a match. I believe that feeding grossly disproportionate prey items for so long stunted my kingsnakes growth, and I believe it also did damage to my heart because every. Single. One. Was. Swallowed. Alive.

Me, personally, I refuse to put myself or my snake in that position again. I feed only live to Badoo, because I insist he always know how to *eat* live prey.

That said, if you're going to prekill, please learn the CD method that's been described in this thread. And if you're going to feed live, you must learn not to be squeamish about watching the snake do it's thing.
I don't think eating the fuzzies live would have caused him harm.. a lot of snakes will do that with younger prey and have no problems.

As for Jenn, thanks but no thanks. I'd rather have my snakes on f/t because it's easier, less risk (In my eyes, I always worry when feeding live.. it's just more relaxing for me.), and a lot less complicated for my breeding schedule. When my KSB needs pinkies, I don't have a new set of pinkies every week like some people do (I just don't need that many ASFs yet!) and frozen really is the only realistic thought behind this. I'm working on getting a better schedule for my ASFs breeding, but either way.. I still don't need that many mice. :]
She's never seen a live mouse, and I don't know what she'd do if she did, sure it could turn out like your situation, or the mouse could bite it and cause her death. I just don't know if I want to take that risk with her.