Feeding live/dead

[Zoe]

Okay, I was at a friend's place today and to my horror discovered that he feeds live prey to all his snakes. Among these are a pair of 3-4 foot boas which are eating live med mice (which, as we call know, can pack a hell of a wallop if they have the chance to bite.)

I've been trying to convince him to feed dead prey.
My arguments are:

- Why risk it? It only takes a rat a split second of hesitation or a mis-aimed bite to blind or seriously injur a snake.
- They strike and coild dead prey, same amount of exercise (right?).
- Snakes get injured by their prey in the wild.

His arguments against dead are:

- The snakes get more exercise
- They eat fast enough (which is true - they have a great strike response)
- They eat live in the wild fine enough)

However, I don't suppose my arguments were too convincing because they didn't change his mind. I DON'T want him to have to find out the hard way that feeding live is bad, so does anyone have any better arguments that he CANT ignore??

Thanks!
Zoe