Hand fed reptiles...

[infernalis]

Anyone else hand feed?? (I know it's risky with the big guys)

http://www.thamfriends.com/forum/picture.php?albumid=17&pictureid=864

http://www.danceswithreptiles.com/limon/samlime.jpg

http://www.reptard.info/critters/thanksdad.jpg

http://www.danceswithreptiles.com/PG1/images/carmela.jpg

[Freebody]

hehe nope my retic goes into a frenzy during feeding time. i wont hold her for at least a day after feeding, even hours after her last rat in her feeding tank when i open the lid i got to be carefull she will just fly out the opening bitting like a dog. no strike at all,shes just bitting the lid the top of the cage anything she can get in her mouth,last week i opened the tank to drop her back into her cage, after about 2 hours since i dropped her last rat in, and she flew out and cage let go and and turn tried to just bite the light frame didnt fit in her mouth then turned and bit the heat dish i use as her heat source lucky for her i had just turned it back on and it had not gotten hot yet. maniac to say the least, classic retic feeding responce from what i read.


i love that green snake.is that a garter as well?some day im going to build a snake shelf and get a collection of garters.maybe breed them. i dont think there is any canadian breeders.cant believe the colors on them all , so many different patterns and they look so sweet and small enouph to get a collection that wont need a whole house to keep them in and cheep on food... and i like there head so small and cute looking.

[Will0W783]

Lol, yeah retics are nuts around feeding time. My sd female, Baby, is insane in the membrane as soon as she smells food; other than that she's a sweetie. But don't let her smell food....
I don't hand feed because I don't trust any of my snakes that much. I do have one snake I would trust, but he eats large rats and they're kind of nasty and messy to hand feed..lol.

[infernalis]

Dorothy got really mad at me for showing Chomper food while she was holding him...

[shaunyboy]

my jag goes into a bit of a frenzy at feeding time.he's my most trusted snake,yet when he smells food he totally transforms into crazy snake.anything that passes his tank with a heat signature makes him strike the glass.only the once (thankfully) he came right past the rat and feeding tongs and decided my finger tips tasted better.with it being a feeding response he wasnt keen on letting go.i had to enlist the help of my wife and 2 oldest sons to unravel him off me.all the time i was acting like a little girl,pulling faces and yellping as he decided to walk up my fingers with those teeth of his.needless to say i bought an even longer set of feeding tongs.
cheers shaun
p.s. can only imagine how scary it would be if it was a retic doing it.

[infernalis]

I never try this with my python, but almost all of our colubrid snakes will eat right out of my hands.

My corn snake missed the target once and started eating my finger, but that was no biggie.

Chomper gets all excited and his claws scare me more than his mouth.

[Aaron_S]

hehe nope my retic goes into a frenzy during feeding time. i wont hold her for at least a day after feeding, even hours after her last rat in her feeding tank when i open the lid i got to be carefull she will just fly out the opening bitting like a dog. no strike at all,shes just bitting the lid the top of the cage anything she can get in her mouth,last week i opened the tank to drop her back into her cage, after about 2 hours since i dropped her last rat in, and she flew out and cage let go and and turn tried to just bite the light frame didnt fit in her mouth then turned and bit the heat dish i use as her heat source lucky for her i had just turned it back on and it had not gotten hot yet. maniac to say the least, classic retic feeding responce from what i read....

From my understanding you're feeding a retic in another enclosure than her regular one? If you are, try feeding it in it's enclosure so you don't have to worry about an increasingly large snake attacking you each week.

Also, I don't hand feed. I use tongs and that's as close as I like to get during feeding.

[Will0W783]

I use tongs and that's as close as I like to get during feeding.

I have to agree with you there Aaron; I don't want them to mistake my fingers for their next meal...ouch!

[infernalis]

The litle ones don't hurt too bad when they miss.

[Freebody]

ya i take her out and feed her in a different container because i figure if food never comes in her home tank she might not attack me during a spot cleaning or wheni go to get her out. she is real alert no matter what she is doing ie sleeping or chilling under the heat light she will come straight for me real fast as soon as she hear the cage opening.not agressivly just to see what going on and sometime its so fast you dont know if she had time to figure out im not food :P

[Aaron_S]

Freebody, I use a snake hook for all my snakes. I simply tap them or touch them on top of their heads (not violently or anywhere near hard) or behind their heads. It tells them that it's not time for food and they don't give me a feeding response. Besides, you have a retic, moving a 16 foot 150 pound snake into a bathroom and then removing isn't any safer than feeding in her enclosure.

Also, I don't get this theory of "the snake won't associate the opening of it's cage with feeding if I feed it somewhere else". Really, think about that, you open the cage to remove the snake for feeding. What's to say the snake doesn't associate the removal from it's home enclosure as time to feed? So as soon as you take her out, she starts striking. Same logic.

[Freebody]

true, i have considered using a hook for some now.
ya im going to start feeding her in her enclosure, i wont have much of a choice soon as shes pretty much outgrown her rubbermaid feeding tank anyways. ya like you said when i come up shes really currious and active i hold my hand out flat to her face as i aprouch her and as soon as i touch her she relaxes , i think ill get myself a hook made sooner than later. shes getting to the point where if she wants to she could hurt me now. shes about 5-6 feet long but still skinny not the same as an adult retic but i feed her the proper amount if not i feed her 2 much but she remains skinny.i read somewhere that they usually fill out later in life so im not worried about it.she is getting fatter now im told i dont really notice it much because im around her all the time. i cant wait till shes full grown and has some girth.nothing like being in the mercy of such a powerfull animal.

[shaunyboy]

Freebody, I use a snake hook for all my snakes. I simply tap them or touch them on top of their heads (not violently or anywhere near hard) or behind their heads. It tells them that it's not time for food and they don't give me a feeding response. Besides, you have a retic, moving a 16 foot 150 pound snake into a bathroom and then removing isn't any safer than feeding in her enclosure.

Also, I don't get this theory of "the snake won't associate the opening of it's cage with feeding if I feed it somewhere else". Really, think about that, you open the cage to remove the snake for feeding. What's to say the snake doesn't associate the removal from it's home enclosure as time to feed? So as soon as you take her out, she starts striking. Same logic.

my mate had a case exactley like that aaron.he used to pick his python up put it into a different tub then feed it.after a while it seemed to associate getting took out with feeding.if it didnt get fed when it was lifted out as say my mate just fancied taking it out to handle it to show friends.the very next time he went in to take it out for whatever reason it hit him with a feeding response.it was like heh i'm not going back in without my food,wheres my food,you forgot last time.i personally feed all mine in their tanks with the exception of the bredl's i keep in the same tank.i split them up at feeding time.
cheers shaun

[infernalis]

I love that green snake.is that a garter as well?some day im going to build a snake shelf and get a collection of garters.maybe breed them. i dont think there is any canadian breeders.cant believe the colors on them all , so many different patterns and they look so sweet and small enouph to get a collection that wont need a whole house to keep them in and cheep on food... and i like there head so small and cute looking.


The green snake is a Cyclophiops Major, Chinese green snake.

[Chu'Wuti]

How different in habitat & feeding is Cyclophiops from Opheodrys? I've kept O. aestivus for a time (WC, then released). I haven't seen the Cyclophiops before.

Sandy

[marvelfreak]

I don't hand feed, but i have reach in many of time while there was food in their cages. I actually pull a rat off of a Burm one time. I put the rat in a it jump right on the burm and bit it. He started moving all over trying to get it off. I grab the rat and it bit me, so i threw it on the floor and stomp on it. My freind told me" i was crazy for reaching in and lucky the burm didn't bite me". I didn't care as long as my snake was safe. My big jungle as a scar on her nose from wrapping (a FT rat) and the mouth pop open. As she squeeze the teeth dug into her nose. I reach in and pulled the rats head back as she finshed squeezing it. I will assaist if needed. I have reach in and move hides and water bowls out of the way to make it easier for my snake to get to a meal that keeps running away.

[Lankyrob]

You can feed live rats in the states?? We would be arrested for cruelty to the rats if we did that here!!

[Feebo]

There are a few species you can live feed Rob, I know the Dummerills Boa is one, they`re very picky eaters and they`re fairly rare in the wild I think, so you`re allowed to live feed them. Zoos are allowed too. I`m betting there are plenty of people that do it though, so many people have only got a snake because they want to see it kill something, I had to stop looking for snake stuff on Youtube in the end....
I have hand fed babies but I`m buggered if I`d want anything large associating my hand with food lol :D

[Freebody]

today i fed my retic in her cage. she didnt know what to do at first when i dropped the mouse in she came up and normally eats like a freak this time she came up fast then stopped dead in her tracks, stared right at the rat for a second gave it a few licks then paused kinda looked at me then bit it, lol the second rat i gave her she didnt hesitate for a second ,she didnt even coil it or stike just a bit it and then started swallowing it imediatly. hope she dont strike at me the next time i go in their thinking food come in the front of this cage now lol

[marvelfreak]

You can feed live rats in the states?? We would be arrested for cruelty to the rats if we did that here!!
Yes! Out of my 5 snakes i only got two that i haven't got to eat prekill or FT.(frozen thawed) I made the mistake of saying something about live feeding on Aussie pythons and snakes .com and i got chewed up oneside an down the other. It doesn't matter who you are if you have snakes at one time or another there's a good chance you'll have a snake that will only eat live.

[Will0W783]

Yeah, it's tough and annoying to switch them over. I have a male FWC that will not eat f/t. I have tried him multiple times, and he just doesn't want anything to do with it. He flips out. I hate feeding him live though, because he is so violent about it. I am continuing to work with him, but because he's still juvenile I can't let him go too long without eating, and so far he's won every holdout.

[cat001]

I hold my little ones while they eat, when they see my hand they climb straight aboard as they know it's dinner time lol

[emseeKAY]

i hand feed my king but my BRB usually soft feeds and is somewhat of a shy eater, he seems to prefer me to place the rat in his enclosure and waits till im gone to get dinner. i dont have a problem with it as i check within an hour or two and dinner is gone, i guess he's just shy lol :P

[Aaron_S]

Whoa I didn't know you'd be charged for feeding a live rat to a snake! That's kind of nuts. I understand though, it's a cornered animal with no real means of escape.

[infernalis]

Personally after seeing what live prey does to snakes, I would prefer never to give a live rat unless absolutely necessary.

Rats and mice fight back, and those teeth can do some damage.

[Lankyrob]

Yeah live feeding would be classed as cruelty to the rat/mouse - you could be arrested and your animals removed!!

[Aaron_S]

I currently have 2 snakes that eat live. One was sold to me eating F/T but she decided to be a jerk. She's taking pre-killed rat pups now so I'm hoping she switches soon.

[infernalis]

Yeah live feeding would be classed as cruelty to the rat/mouse - you could be arrested and your animals removed!!


The part that confuses me is "pre-killed" is that allowed in the UK??

If so, then please tell me how smashing the poor rodent in the head is supposed to be more humane to the rodent??

I hate pre-killing, it seems very cruel, I buy frozen feeders or feed live, I used to pre-kill, but it got to me quickly. Sometimes it would take more than one swift blow to kill the prey item.

I know I am contradicting myself, so I will clarify, Our royal python is a very effective killer, and it's only small mice that I give him, I have never seen a small mouse penetrate his skin, mostly because he grabs them by the head then wraps around them.

When I need to "cull off" excess mice from my colonies, I give a bunch of little hoppers to our corn snake, they are too small to hurt him.

When I need to eliminate adult mice, I give them to chomper, he takes the down so fast they never see it coming.

[Lankyrob]

I believe (tho i am no lawyer!!) that the RSPCA would look at a human humanely killing a mouse/rat to feed to a snake favourably - whereas leaving a mouse/rat in a situation where it will inevitably be killed by another animal would be seen as cruel.

Dont blame me - the laws an ***!!!

[shaunyboy]

You can feed live rats in the states?? We would be arrested for cruelty to the rats if we did that here!!

if you want to cover yourself legal wise rob.you get your vet to ok it first.if you have tried and exhausted all available methods and a snake still wont eat,then you are LEGALLY ALLOWED to live feed.it would be cruel on the snake not to try live feeding to get it back eating again.
cheers shaun

p.s.i only live feed as a very last resort as like marvelfreak said the food item can end up biting lumps out your snake.

marvelfreak,i had a little chuckle to myself wondering what was going through the rats mind when it saw the big burm. " right its me or him,so come on then you big b***ard lets have you " ...!!

cheers shaun

[Lankyrob]

Good point Shauny - i guess in that situation they look at the life of the non-vermin as being more important.

[marvelfreak]

[quote=shaunyboy;558611]if you want to cover yourself legal wise marvelfreak,i had a little chuckle to myself wondering what was going through the rats mind when it saw the big burm. " right its me or him,so come on then you big b***ard lets have you " ...!!


Laugh my a-s off. Well it did it. I hand feed my bredli. I held the rat fuzzie by its tail he came an slowly bit it and warp. Almost like he was being careful not to bite me.

[infernalis]

marvelfreak,i had a little chuckle to myself wondering what was going through the rats mind when it saw the big burm. " right its me or him,so come on then you big b***ard lets have you " ...!!

cheers shaun

http://www.thamnophis.com/thamphotos/data//500/Too_funny.jpg

[heloderm]

I have hand fed just about every reptile I've ever kept, monitors, tegus, Gilas, Beadeds, Retics, Burms...you name it aside from venomous snakes.

John

[emseeKAY]

I have hand fed just about every reptile I've ever kept, monitors, tegus, Gilas, Beadeds, Retics, Burms...you name it aside from venomous snakes.

John

lol who wouldnt wanna hand feed a gaboon lol j/k

[infernalis]

How different in habitat & feeding is Cyclophiops from Opheodrys? I've kept O. aestivus for a time (WC, then released). I haven't seen the Cyclophiops before.

Sandy

Sorry I missed this before.

Cyclophiops are from the rain forest of China.

They are completely different, American green snakes are insect eaters, Cyclophiops are worm eaters.

To keep a cyclophiops requires an upright cage the size of a soda machine with a small tree inside it.

http://www.danceswithreptiles.com/R_I_P_%20Green%20snake_files/tree2.jpg

[Coffee Black]

I used to have a Dumeril's that was extremely difficult to feed F/T. I acquired him as a yearling and was told he was eagerly feeding on F/T. Not the case. I tried scenting with fowl and nothing. I even tried braining the mouse ( worse thing I have ever done) Eventually I let him go for two weeks without a meal then placed him in an opaque rubbermaid container with a f/t large mouse and f/t rat pup and put that in his enclosure and left him alone overnight till about noon. Checked it and both were gone and he made a nice try for my nose haha. I ended up having to do this every week for a month or so until he would eventually take it from tongs. I don't know if this will work with every problem feeder but it worked for me.

[spankygaaarge]

we had the same problem with our Dumeril's boa when we first got him, he went off food for about 2 months after our family grew to include our dragon, we got to the point where we were going to try the "force feeding" method which neither of us were too excited about......... until we thought maybe if we tried live prey would he eat it?? and as soon as that little mouse touched the bottom of that tub spanky had him firmly in his grip now he'll only take live prey, but we wouldnt dream of hand feeding him, hes too big...........

[Will0W783]

My fiance's Dumeril's boa is also a pain in the tookus to feed. He will only take one prey item at a feeding and only eat mice. He's a bit over 3 feet long, so he isn't growing at all. I've tried live rats and he wont' have them. If he would take several mice in one sitting it wouldn't be so bad, but he won't. Maybe it's common with Dumeril's? I've seen some huge ones, and I know Magellan will never get that big if he doesn't start eating better.

[Lankyrob]

Willow - would increasing the frequency of feeding help?

[Will0W783]

We usually only get him to eat every other week. He's a total pain in the rear-end.

[spankygaaarge]

My fiance's Dumeril's boa is also a pain in the tookus to feed. He will only take one prey item at a feeding and only eat mice. He's a bit over 3 feet long, so he isn't growing at all. I've tried live rats and he wont' have them. If he would take several mice in one sitting it wouldn't be so bad, but he won't. Maybe it's common with Dumeril's? I've seen some huge ones, and I know Magellan will never get that big if he doesn't start eating better.

we dont have a problem now, he'll eat 3 (once he took 4, because they were REALLY small mice (all we could get) mice every week and he's nearly 4 feet now, we want to put him onto rats, but we are a little worried that they maybe too big for him, an maybe a little more aggressive than mice, we dont want him to get hurt!!!!!!!!!!!

[Will0W783]

Hmm, well I guess Magellan maybe just needs to get hungry enough? He's not losing weight, just not growing.

[spankygaaarge]

Hmm, well I guess Magellan maybe just needs to get hungry enough? He's not losing weight, just not growing.

someone told me yesterday that their Dumerils was very similar maybe they're fussy eaters, or could be just that they are sensitive (to what i'm not sure) an any kind of disruption (no matter how small) upsets them enough to stop them eating............. just a thought !!!!!!!!!:confused:

[Will0W783]

Back on topic, I accidentally hand-fed my male GTP the other day. I opened his cage and he was very hungry. He popped his head out and snatched the mouse from my hands calmly as you please...lol. Startled the bejeezus out of me, but he didn't bite me at all. He's sooo incredibly docile, it just amazes me. He is mostly Biak-type from his looks, which makes it even more amazing that he is as tame as he is; Biaks have a nasty reputation.

[infernalis]

That sounds so cool Kim, bet it was exciting for you.

[Will0W783]

That sounds so cool Kim, bet it was exciting for you.

It scared the bleep outta me...lol. I almost crapped my pants to be honest, but it was pretty cool. I was just not expecting Archi to pop up and snatch it like that. Usually I have to smack him in the face with the mice a few times before he takes them. I think I will try it again next time though...hehehe. Nice adrenaline rush, and Archi would not bite me on purpose....I don't think...