Live or dead ? That is the question

[Gollum]

Is it really all that important to feed them with dead preys... I know this guy with a ton of snakes for years and hes always been feeding live , except for a couple snakes. And what becomes of the snakes hunting instinct ?

[RepTylE]

I have a BP that eats live or dead. I see him grab the mouse and constrict regardless. No dulling of the killing instinct there. I used ti feed him live all the time but due to feeder supply probs I have to travel farther to find a decent supply so buying frozen is my solution.

Feed live if that is your preference but please don't just drop the feeder in the cage and walk away. I'm sure that you have heard horror stories of a mouse or rat attacking the snake and doing some serious damage when left unattended.

[chas*e]

My collection of snakes are fed thawed rats ..period. I don't need the Vet bills if complications arise from a rat bite. Besides the rats and mice stink my place up..lol.....l raised them on f/t fom the get go.....there is one BP that eats live ..he was an aquisition and is extremely old...it pisses me off but thats him.

[daver676]

Not this again......

Pre-killed or frozen-thawed only.

If you've tried EVERYTHING else to get your snake to eat, then a small live prey item may be used.

The instinct is still there, it just varies with intensity by the snake.

Dave

[Gollum]

Well, no frozen around here :/
So pre killed or live. Live gives them more exercice ^^

[thelessa]

When I first got my boa, the girl before me had been feeding live. I didn't have any problems switching him over. In fact, he didn't ever refuse. I got really lucky in that aspect.

Before I had gotten him, I had done lots of research about this vs. thing.

It really doesn't make any emotional/financial/whatever sense to feed these creatures live rodents.
I don't know about you, but I am living on a *tight* college student budget. I would prefer to avoid the vet for mites/parasites/bites and damage if I can. My animal comes first, and If I had to eat ramen for 6 months, then so be it, but why add to the issue?

Unless you just get off on watching it go down.

I can't imagine it being much different on a "rush" level. It's always exciting and my boa doesn't even know the difference. He has struck at every f/t I have twitched in front of him. Besides, captivity doesn't equal an instinctive enviroment where he is living or dying based on his food intake. The monkey behind the plexi is always going to make sure he eats.

Wow. who put that soapbox there?

Lessa

[Gollum]

Agreed but they really don't sell f/t here to my knowledge. Does someone know online orders for europe ? Cuz i live in france :/

[mykee]

Around and around we go in a neverending battle of live vs. dead. Shoot me.

[Lisa]

Gollum: where are you?

If you are in canada or the united states you can buy in bulk cheaper then you can from any pet store. and if there is no one selling f/t maybe there's a niche you can fill.

[jay76]

Originally posted by Gollum
Live gives them more exercice

Yeeeeah... Live also gives them more of a chance to meet the local vet too.

If you can't find frozen then stun or kill a live one. I sort of adopted all the snakes at the petstore near where I live, and the first weekend I fed them, they all got whacked mice instead of live. The only ones who refused to eat were in shed (although they don't have any WC... there was a WC ball python that ate only live mice but someone bought him). There is NO NEED to feed a snake live prey unless it's a last resort.

Why does this keep coming up every month?

[ohh_kristina]

you should be feeding dead. at least pre killed. I feed pre killed and it's no problem. The people at the pet store will kill the rats for me. The previous owner of my ball python (he was a rescue) fed him live, and he has the scars to prove it. He has a 2cm gash on the side of his head, and two nice scars on his sides. And this was right in front of the owners eyes, the rat did it before the owner could jump in there and remove the rat. It is too much of a risk, in my opinion.

[eyespy]

I've never yet met a snake fed solely live prey that didn't have intestinal parasites. And I've been doing fecals since 1985. Rodents are called "pinworm factories" in medical slang.

[Linds]

Originally posted by Gollum
Well, no frozen around here :/


If you have live, then you can have frozen. Wack em and stick em in the feezer for a day or two ;)

Live gives them more exercice ^^

How do you figure??? They don't move any more than they would with a dead prey item, and most snakes still constrict just as they would a live one. Snakes fed dead still hunt when they are hungry (how else do we know they are hungry?). The excercise arguement doesn't work, because snakes do not get anymore excercise with either method. And the natural debate doesn't work either since there is nothing natural about captivity.

There aren't really any significant cons to feeding f/t, while there are many to feeding live...

[mark129er]

My snake ate live but that was of its own accord. It had escaped and found its way into the mouse cage. Got a nice meal and not a scratch, I know I got lucky and have every intention of feeding prekilled or f/t. But it goes to show that the instinct is still there.

this debate will never end.

mark

[mykee]

mark, this debate will end, and when it finally does, someone new to this site will come on in a week and rehash the whole sorry topic again.

[MouseKilla]

This should just be a permanent thread because this topic will never go away. For those who are becoming annoyed I'd like to let them know that it isn't totally useless, people do change their minds because they've participated in or just read one of the hundreds of threads asking this same old question. My personal opinion has evolved on this because of these debates. At one time I fed live exclusively, now I feed f/k or very stunned prey. I have been shown the pictures and heard the horror stories and that has swayed me even though I have only ever had one minor bite to one of my snakes. Just from my own experience I judged that it was worth what I perceived to be a very small risk of minor injury to give the snakes as natural a life as I possibly could (while appreciating that I could never simulate it perfectly). I was not feeding live to get off on watching a rodent die, I kill them myself all the time so it's no thrill to watch a snake do it. What I was trying to do is increase the animal's quality of life. I still think this is something we should try to do but after being shown proof of the risks of live feeding, the things that probably won't but just might happen during one of the thousands of feedings you will have to do, I have decided that the risks aren't worth the potential benefits in this case. To compensate for the snake not taking the prey down itself you can put a stunned rodent into the enclosure, it will still twitch and move around but won't be able to defend itself. If you're snake isn't an ambush hunter by nature, like a BCI, you can hide the p/k or f/t prey in the enclosure and let the snake track it down. I believe those ideas provide some balance between safety and stimulation.

[Gollum]

Ok, Ok agreed... Ill drop it since it really seams to bother certain members :)

[BoidKeeper]

And what becomes of the snakes hunting instinct ?
Why would they need it in captivity? If they are fed they don't need to hunt so why would they need the instinct?
Mykee: Bang! My turn!
Trevor

[Linds]

Originally posted by BoidKeeper
Why would they need it in captivity? If they are fed they don't need to hunt so why would they need the instinct?


They don't need it in captivity, but these are animals that will not, no matter what you do, lose their feeding instincts. The only instinct that gets tampered with is their fear instinct. Many of them learn to eventually lose fear of potentially harmful animals, such as people.

[BoidKeeper]

My point exactly Linds. Guess I wasn't clear enough or sarcastic enough.lol
Cheers,
Trevor

[TheRedDragon]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Live prey should only be fed to a snake as a LAST RESORT. If the snake won't take F/T (Frozen Thawed), try them on F/K (Fresh Killed). My Kenyan was always fed live all her life by her previous owner and Invictus and I managed to get her on freshly killed prey. It takes a lot of patience, but, it can be done. I only condone live prey IF and ONLY IF you've tried everything else to get the snake on dead prey, all efforts have failed, and the snake is on the brink of starvation. Even a small mouse can do a HORRIFIC amount of damage to snake if it gets the notion to defend itself, could you even BEGIN to imagine what a rat or a guinea pig could do? It's not pretty. Even if the snake has been fed live all its life without incident, I can garentee you that eventually something can and will happen where the owner will regret their decision to feed live. Even if the feedings are supervised, do you really think that if the mouse decided to attack the snake, that you'd be brave enough to seperate the two? It'd be worse then stepping in between a cat fight! Just my 2 cents. :)

[mykee]

Trevor; Sorry I missed that, but huh?

[BoidKeeper]

Sorry Mykee. This is what I meant.

Around and around we go in a neverending battle of live vs. dead. Shoot me.

Bang! There, I shot you. Now it's my turn *hands mykee the pretend gun*
Cheers,
Trevor

[enso]

*Beats this thread to death with a frozen thawed mouse*

[mykee]

Ahh, too bad you don't have better aim, I was kinda hopin' you'd get me right between the peepers. Ok..... Bang!! ... I missed, quite dancing around!! Bang!! Got ya'.
I feed and will continue to feed RESTRAINED live because I am an inconsiderate, unprofessional, ignorant, uneducated, egomeniacal, insensitive alien cat-eater........uh, sorry got caught up. There, I beat you ALL to it, so leave me alone!! hehehe.... BTW, for all of you who would just love a pound of flesh from me and a great debate on this topic, I refer you to thread: "What should I feed him?" in the 'Python Regius' Forum.

[BoidKeeper]

I've got a new albino het BP that will only take live so far. It's not like I'm not trying to switch him but for now if that's all he's going to take I'm not going to let him starv. Ask any big breeder what they feed. The answer may surprise a lot of you.
Cheers,
Trevor

[mykee]

Trevor, the answers have not surprised me one bit, and the reasoning is right on the money, too. Notice how they never get involved in these petty debates? As a sidenote, for all those who think I am the devil incarnate, I got 6 hatchlings within the lsat couple 'o months, all either het for something, or visible morph, and all were eating live (but for one) when I got them. I'm glad to say that I have converted them ALL to f/t. Yay for me. That may change once they get bigger though..........

[mykee]

Trevor, I wouldn't worry about the baby het, what I do is wait until they shed, that one week without food seems to do something, because that's where I offer a f/t and I've had 100% success so far. Keep fighting the good fight.

[BoidKeeper]

How funny is that??? That was the plan. I'm not worried I've convered W/C and this is a CBB Don P animal we're talking about here. It's all just a matter of time really.
Cheers,
Trevor

[mykee]

Mr. Patterson has some great animals, specifically albino hets. I recently got 1.3 het albinos from him. All of them eat like monsters, and all now eat f/t. Their appetites are among the most voracious I've ever seen. At this rate, they'll be tussling with my albino and pastel next year...

[Gollum]

well then can u tell me how you stimilate them to attack the fresh dad or thawed mice ? I'm getting my first snake so i'd liek to know.

[BoidKeeper]

Get a snake that is eating F/T and save yourself the trouble.
Things that work,
Heating the rat.
Dangling it from Hemostats.
Cutting off the nose to increase the sent.
Placing it inside a dark container alone with a F/T over night some times works.
Lots of stuff to try,
Trevor

[MouseKilla]

Often putting it in front of them is all it takes, they usually don't hesitate. If they have been feeding on live try stunned (quick rap on the head with something usually does it) then make the transition, if you like, to f/k then f/t if you want to use frozen feeders. Another trick that works for me is cutting the skull open and squishing out some brains. It's nasty but this has never failed me, they can't resist the smell it seems.

[Linds]

Mmmmmmm who could resist brains? :flick:

[MouseKilla]

It's a constant struggle.

[TheRedDragon]

Yes, brains are wonderful with a nice glass of Chianti. :flick: