Quote Originally Posted by spokism View Post
Thats exactly what i was talking about. It is not natural for them to eat dead prey, and i dont think it is fair to keep them captive AND feed them dead prey.

Also i think that is halarious just because i have no compasion for rats. Not because she didnt eat it. I just picture it funny that a rat with no eyes was running around. Maby im just evil
You don't have to have "compassion" for rats, but it wouldn't do any harm to have even a tiny bit of respect for the animal that is the sole reason you have a living snake in your house.

Quote Originally Posted by spokism View Post
thats why i dont condone f/t feeding. Its hard to get them to do it because it is going aganst their natural instincts, and they just dont like it. Its not really fair
That's far too broad a statement. Lots of snakes eat f/t prey, just like lots of snakes eat live prey and lots of snakes eat p/k prey. If they eat it, they like it...it's just that simple. Do you honestly think some snake is eating f/t prey and thinking "well I really don't like this but I guess I have to eat it".

Quote Originally Posted by RoyalGuardian View Post
OMG! Kyros my ball pops their eyeballs too! Its soooo gross! He does it about 3 out of 5 times feeding him. so i would suppose its normal! Sorry for your bad experiance! I hope my feeding day goes ok today * crosses fingers*
No it's not normal. I feed live to almost 50 snakes a week here, from under 100 gram hatchlings to full adult boas and I do not have a bunch of rat eyeballs rolling around the enclosures. In fact in literally 1,000's of live feedings I've never seen it happen. I've seen some minor mouth, eye or ear bleeds from prey but again, very minor not even enough usually to require the snake's enclosure to be cleaned post feeding.

Quote Originally Posted by SoCaliSon View Post
This is where it bothers me a bit.
First and foremost we should put all "keeper convenience" aside here and aim at creating a stable, healthy environment for the snake, where they can live and practice natural behaviors as if they were on their own in the wild. I say it all the time... We will never reproduce nature in a cage, but as long as we are keeping these animals captive, that should be the ultimate goal. Not creating an enviroment that is convenient for us, while giving the snake the bare minimun of wht they need to eat, poop, and shed. That is the main point I am getting at.

It was said a snake can be "conditioned" to eat FT? Your right, it can... But should we be condtioning an animal away from their natural behaviors for our convenince? You are taking an animal who is a natural born predator made to hunt and kill small animals, and conditioning them to eat dead animals for your convenience. Hmmm...No sir I don't like it.

No offense meant to anyone, I know not everyone agrees with me... I just thought I would share my views on the subject.

I am an advocate for the animal before the hobby.

Sorry guys, I'll get off my soap box...didn't mean to stray.
I'm a live feeder but I don't fool myself into thinking for one minute I'm creating anything close to what their life is like "on their own in the wild". If I wanted that I'd have to build a termite mound or dig some rat burrows, make sure to import some African ticks to latch on to them, let them go hungry for months, toss in a wandering predator to eat a few of them, etc.

They are captive snakes living captive lives. How you feed is a keeper's decision based on what works for the keeper and their snakes. As long as it's a well thought out decision based on knowledge and research into that particular feeding method and the snake accepts that prey with a strong feeding instinct....it's all good.