When feeding your snake...

[NennaMeerkat]

When feeding your snake what is your routine? Do you follow a routine or is your snake cool enough to just go with whatever?

[Lankyrob]

Most of them just put the prey item somewhere in their enclosure and they will find it. My Bp i need to pick up and put onto the plate that i put the item on and then tease feed him, if he misses his first strike he will go and hide!

My Retic you have to put the plate into the viv (carefully as he has already smelt food in the air) and then one person will distract him at one end of the viv whilst the other quickly slides the door open and drops the rat onto the plate. If you try to tong feed or put the rat in without this he WILL strike at you rather than the rat, whatever the temperature is.

[Ch^4]

My snakes typically go with the flow. Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays are feed days; 3 girls on Fri, 2 or 3 on Sat, and 2 or 3 on Sun.

Someone is always shedding (my Cali King shed this morning, my adult BP is in the middle of his cycle, my BRB should shed by tomorrow, my JCP last week, etc.), so there is no "set in stone" schedule. They all get fed in "feed boxes or bags" and they all know that it's dinner time!

[infernalis]

I have so many darn snakes, I am feeding some almost every day.

For babies, I start out with 2-3 pinkie mice, then I chop them up while still frozen (Like hard ice cream) that way it's not messy at all.. then I let the pinkie sausage thaw out and feed it to them.

For adults I just lock each one in a poly tote with the food, and usually the food is gone quickly, stubborn animals get left overnight in the feed box.

The BP, all I have to do is show him a rodent, and he strikes hard.

[NennaMeerkat]

Does anyone have a snake show interest in the food and "play" with it, such as pushing it, rolling it around, ect. but never eat it? Attempted to feed my hognose a f/t pinkie today and she showed a TON of interest in it but never actually ate it. Instead she played with it before scouring the rest of the tank (and still is) as if hunting. But not showing any other interest in her food.

Probably will pick up live tomorrow if this pinkie doesn't get ate...and I don't think it will since after the initial playing around she has been everywhere else searching and cruising.

[serpentshideawa]

just use tongs to hang the rodent in the cage and let the snakes do the work haha

[ineedsoap16]

For most of my snakes i can just put it in there, but the carpets... When its food time, they ar waiting at the top oof the cage ready to pounce. Once my Jungle came out and grabbed the rat before I could open the cage and get it inside. She squeezed it and ate it hanging out of the tank. I stood there and made sure she didn't fall but I didn't want to interrupt her ehile eating. I think that was the only time I've had a Carpet go into the cage on their own.

[NennaMeerkat]

Originally Posted by serpentshideawa

just use tongs to hang the rodent in the cage and let the snakes do the work haha

I did indeed use tongs before simply leaving it in there...showed no interest except for the playing with it after I dropped it and left it.

[infernalis]

My black racer is funny, I have to dangle the pinkie by the tail with hemostats and wiggle the mouse around.

Racers have visually motivated feeding response, so the home in on movement.

[NennaMeerkat]

I am not sure what a hognose is motivated by but considering her rolling the f/t large mouse pinkie this morning I would think response in some way to her nudging and rolling it. Something dangling or just laying there won't get.