Quote Originally Posted by rabernet View Post
Have you ever just tried offering non-stunned animals, not on the forceps to your snakes?

I would imagine a stunned animal that's coming out of the fog would be far more angry and likely to bite than one that's not. Especially one that finds itself on the end of forceps.
I don't offer them on forceps, stunned, as the snakes won't accept them that way. I put them in the cage still kicking. I only have a few snakes that are THIS picky. (Both of my albinos). Offer them a live, conscious rodent, and they get bitten virtually every time. I'm glad your snakes are more competent than mine, but that's not the point. lol
As these snakes are a year old now, feeding them only toothless baby rodents doesn't work either.

The primary point is, live rodents CAN HURT SNAKES. And they do. And NOT infrequently. Even a really great hunter can hit a rodent wrong and wind up with a bite.
These aren't wild animals, they are our pets. They don't get bored. They are snakes. They are happy hiding in a hole all day, and most of the night. They come out for food and water.

If you told your doctor you were going to feed your kids only frozen foods, he would shrug and tell you to be sure that they got plenty of veggies. He'd probably mention that green leafy vegetables are healthy, but then, there's always collard greens and spinich available frozen. Tests show that frozen vegetables don't have less nutritional value than fresh supermarket produce. Half the meat we buy thawed was shipped frozen anyhow.

The only nutrient of concern that you may want to supplement when you feed strictly f/t is available in brewer's yeast. There are no nutritional concerns at all with pre-killed.

I have only a couple of snakes that will take f/t prey off of the cage floor--the rest eat it off of tongs, and constrict it first. One of the ones that eats off the cage floor constricts, too. Only one of my ball pythons will simply eat an f/t rodent without constricting it.
(One of my big females did take an f/t rodent off tongs and just eat it...but she took the second one I offered particularly violently, lol).

Comparing live with pre-killed is no contest--pre-killed has exactly the same nutritional value with none of the danger. If the snake doesn't care that it's not alive, you certainly shouldn't. They have no NEED to kill their food.