oracle switching to rats

[TeaNinja]

i had to switch my small female dum over to rat pups and she didnt want to eat before when she was due because she was in blue but she seemed hungry so i gave her one of the rat pups and she snatched it right up. was super sad to hear it shriek and die and the snake took super long to kill it which was even worse. if she wasn't fed live her whole life i would have f/k it but i wanted to make her first rat as similar to her other feedings as possible. i'll start f/k or f/t them from now on. but at least the switch to rats was easy =/

also was her first feeding with me.

[Ch^4]

Congrats, getting them to eat the first time for you is always a relief. And switching a soon to be large snake to rats is even more relieving!

[NennaMeerkat]

Yeah those little shrieks are heartbreaking at times. My corns always took forever to kill and I fed them live their entire lives. One corn would eat up to three decent sized mice a week and though he would kill them all before eating them it was hard to hear the squeaks and such.

If your own snake is used to always being fed live I will give you props if you can convince it to eat frozen. Your best bet, I bet, will be freshly killed more than anything.

[TeaNinja]

nigma was always fed live and he put off food for MONTHS and refused live prey over and over and finally one night after 4 or 5 months i put a f/t in and he ate it.

just depends on how ingrained the live eating is i guess. some snakes are happy just to have food sitting in front of them, whereas others HAVE to kill the prey to eat it. (then there are the one's who "kill" f/t for like 20 minutes lol)

[NennaMeerkat]

Yeah I think the one corn that ate about 3 mice a week wouldn't have eaten f/t or fresh killed. He really seemed to be a hard striker and hard hitter. But only ONLY if he sees the mouse move. My other corn however was more...lazy...about things and would simply strike and eat without worrying about movement. He also ate a lot less than my other guy.

Goodness I miss those snakes every time I talk about them. Durn us for moving across country without a good way to move them.

[TeaNinja]

=/ yea i sometime's wish i'd kept my leopard gecko even though crickets annoy the crap out of me. she was super cute.

[NennaMeerkat]

It is to bad I could never convince my hubby to get another corn. Maybe once our two rats pass on we can consider it again. They are in a nice large aquarium which would easily support a corn.

Which reminds me I need to post up pics of the way I have my rats tank setup sometime once I get my new addition to it. People often underestimate the usage of a good sized tank for rats.

Why do crickets bother you? Is it the smell...noise...??

[TeaNinja]

i still live at home with my mom right now and i live in a condo and i get annoyed by chirping all night lol. if i had a garage that'd be ok. i'd make something warm enough for them to live and i wouldn't have to hear it constantly. but here, i either keep them outside and they die, or i keep them inside and i hate it lol. not to mention i'm sure my mom doesn't enjoy chirping all night either.

i'm sure i'll eventually stockpile abunch of money and move out again, but for now i'm just working and relaxing.

oh, not to mention i had to drive 20ish minutes to get more crickets and waste more gas.

[stephanbakir]

I was wondering about that, is it possible to raise Dubia and feed them right after a molt to a leopard?

[TeaNinja]

of course. i believe wayne used to talk about feeding dubias to his leopard gecko all the time.

[stephanbakir]

Sweetness!

[TeaNinja]

she took her first prey item that wasn't live today. i was messing with her hide and i reached my hand in to put the hide back on the other side and she shot her head out of the other hide like my hand was food lol. i knew she was hungry (she is always hungry) so i f/k her a rat and put it in the cage. she huffed and puffed like it was prey but she just kind of stared at it. i knew she was gonna need the movement so i grabbed a straigtened coat hanger and CREEPED the lid like a cm open lol. i put the hanger in and she looked at the movement like a T-REX. she followed the hanger and when i put it under the rat and pushed the rat upwards she struck it. she's been constricting the f/k for like 5-10 minutes now O.O lol

i hope she eventually switches to just eating f/t and being relaxed. right now she is an unstoppable eating machine who thinks everything that comes into the viv is food :D i'll feed her and she'll be hungry like 2-3 days later, it's rediculous. i bet she'll grow fast with an appetite like that.

[TeaNinja]

hahah. i just f/k the bp a rat too and i put it in his tank and i noticed he was eating like 10 minutes later so i sat down on my bed and watched him for a minute and he looked at me and kind of stopped for a second, then he dragged the rat half way in his mouth into his hide so i couldn't watch lol. i had to laugh, then i left him alone.

meanwhile oracle is trying to eat the rat feet first like an idiot right now -.- lol

there we go...lol she wised up and found the head. now its eating time.

[Coffee Black]

My carpet does that too. Strikes hardcore at the rat then drops it and hisses at me until I leave. I peek through the door and she drags it into her hide. She also inducted my fiance into the bite club today. Took the largest poop I've ever seen then my fiance tried to be helpful and clean it out and got a nice nom on the pinky.