Snake swallows food alive.

[D70challenger]

Hello all, First time posting so hopefully this is the correct place. I have a Mexican Black Kingsnake, he is about 22-24 inches in length. Whenever I fed him (thawed)frozen food, he would always very gently take the pinkie, would never bite it unless he had the head and would not strike. Today I fed him what I assume is his first live pinkie, and it worried me. At first he bit it and held it. After a minute, he sort of half constricted it. He held it in a bear hug for about 5 minutes, then released it. He let it go and the pinkie started walking around. Then he went face to face and bit it on the head. He proceeded to eat it alive. Luckily the defensive capabilities of the pinkie is not good but when I upgrade to mice, he may become fatally scratched internally. Even after he had the head and upper body down, the feet were still kicking and struggling. Should I continue to feed live pinkies and hope he learns to kill first, or stick to frozen?

[KORBIN5895]

There is no reason to feed live if he will take frozen thawed.

[infernalis]

There is no reason to feed live if he will take frozen thawed.

I concur.. Please continue feeding pre-killed food.

[Gungirl]

^ agree.. No reason to feed live. If for some reason you can't get frozen then pre-kill the food for him.

[Lankyrob]

^^^^ what they all said^^^^

[Sophia'sSophia]

Live food is an unnecessary danger, easily avoided.
If your snake has been taking dead ones, there is literally no reason to switch it to live.

[Aaron_S]

Hello all, First time posting so hopefully this is the correct place. I have a Mexican Black Kingsnake, he is about 22-24 inches in length. Whenever I fed him (thawed)frozen food, he would always very gently take the pinkie, would never bite it unless he had the head and would not strike. Today I fed him what I assume is his first live pinkie, and it worried me. At first he bit it and held it. After a minute, he sort of half constricted it. He held it in a bear hug for about 5 minutes, then released it. He let it go and the pinkie started walking around. Then he went face to face and bit it on the head. He proceeded to eat it alive. Luckily the defensive capabilities of the pinkie is not good but when I upgrade to mice, he may become fatally scratched internally. Even after he had the head and upper body down, the feet were still kicking and struggling. Should I continue to feed live pinkies and hope he learns to kill first, or stick to frozen?

He would never learn to kill them. A lot of snake species eat live prey. Kings and milks are generally one that have no problem doing so. Stick to dead.

[BallP]

You are all hippies.

[infernalis]

You are all hippies.

Great first post....

Most of us have been called worse.

http://elizwrites.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/hippies-in-van.jpg

[puffinluffin]

There is no reason to feed live if he will take frozen thawed.

This.

Live scares me so much

[puffinluffin]

You are all hippies.

One love brotha

[Aaron_S]

You are all hippies.

Wait...what?

That's stupid. Don't be stupid.

[Little Wise Owl]

You are all hippies.

I like whenever people apply logic to situations like these, they're called "hippies" or my favourite, "PETA followers".

[KORBIN5895]

You are all hippies.

Because we realise that feeding live is an unnecessary risk and a hassle to boot? Or maybe you are just a small child that still thinks it's cool to watch an animal struggle for its life? Hmmm. Makes you kinda wonder.

[Revenant]

One more for feeding frozen thawed. Also, when I've had snakes that were fed prey much smaller than they needed, I've noticed a decreased tendency to make an effort to kill their prey.

[Medusa13]

Yea def stick to frozen. Years ago one of my ball pythons was attacked by the mouse and it wasn't pretty. Been feeding frozen ever since.

[Stephan Grundy]

Often snakes won't bother to constrict very young prey that can't resist.
Interestingly, when I took my young corn up from f/t pinkies to f/t fuzzies, he started fully or partially constricting them; clearly his instincts said, "more of a challenge".

The risks of feeding live prey are perhaps sometimes exaggerated from concern (though there have been gruesome incidents on rare occasions); but though small, they are still unnecessary risks. I started snake-keeping in the US when everyone fed live, and saw one minor nip in several years. But why take any risk without need or benefit? Besides, it's a pain to buy a live one every few days when you could just have a bag in the freezer.