f/t or live

[Skumbo]

Originally Posted by red ink

Nothing wrong with live feeding "if" that's the only way the specimen will take it's prey and done properly....

Something wrong with live feeding if the person that owns the snake is just plain too lazy to even try and switch them over to FK or FT....

Live feeding then IMO is just for "kicks"..... I have no time for people in this hobby who are in it just for "kicks".

/thread? :P

[mykee]

I think a lot of you are ignoring a very important part of feeding live; the temperment of the feeder.
I breed all my own live stuff for those that prefer live food and with that in mind, my breeder collection is as tame as can be. I can reach into bins and pick up adults, adolescents and even take babies from mom without being bit.
As I mentioned, having fed over 10,000 live rats over my career without a single incident, I must be doing something right.
The key is to have stressfree, healthy, happy rodents.

[infernalis]

Here is some variables to consider.

Not everyone is completely forthright in their stories.

Not all rat suppliers are created equal, in other words if this did in fact happen in just a couple hours as described, then chances are that the person/place that the rats came from had not fed the rats in a while.

I breed my own rats, and I used to sell quite a few to a pet shop down the road, until one day I stopped in and there were several rats feeding off the carcass of another rat.

I was infuriated, I asked what the hell happened, and the owner of the pet store blamed an emplyee who "forgot to top off the food dishes"

Needless to say, I refuse to sell any rats to them now.

Even though my rats are bred as feeders, I take care of them like pets, they live damn good until that fateful moment.

Heck, I am guilty of spoiling my rats, they get pampered better than most people's hamsters do.

Now back to the "story" I used to know a young lady (yeah she visited in person a couple times) who spun a yarn about how she killed a whole litter of baby snakes by "taking a phone call"

She cried and cried about how it was only a couple minutes on the forums, but I know teenage girls too well, weather it was her BFF or her BF, she took a phone call that had to have lasted over an hour and then when she got her mind back on to the snakes, it was too late, they were cooked and very dead.

The point I am trying to make is this, people will exaggerate the truth on a forum to make things look "not so bad" for them.

[Snakefood]

my feeders are the same, the adults are very friendly (I have been bitten by a weaner being separated)

All my snakes (so far) eat killed food, I hope I am lucky enough not to have to feed live. I am not really worried about the mouse/rat eating the snake like in Korbins pic, but I don`t want to have to deal with even a bite wound or scratch if I can aviod it.

[jarich]

I think thats all well and good Mykee about your rats being nice to you. They have no reason not to be. However, the same can not be said of their interaction with the snake. And I can believe that post above happened in a few hours. It doesnt look like that snake had much actual flesh taken out of it, or that necessarily the rat did that for the sake of food. You put a rat in with a big snake and the rat is going to know it has to defend itself or die. Your talking about a cornered animal that is protecting its life. It will defend itself with what it has...large teeth and claws.

Ive never had a problem with any of my live feeders either in the years Ive kept snakes. Ive also never gone through the window of my car on those rare occasions when I didnt have my seatbelt on. But the point is the same, why take the risk? All it takes is one scratch across an eye, or as the above post shows one emergency where you forgot, and you have all the reason in the world to make the switch. I generally try to switch my snakes to fresh killed, not because I think they cant handle a live one, but because its generally easy to do and takes away ALL risk. There is no risk from feeding fresh killed. ZERO. There is some risk from feeding live; though admittedly its small, there is still some risk. So if its not hard to do, why is this still an argument?

[shaunyboy]

if a hungry snake strikes and gets say the body or back end of a live rat,then.....

there is a risk of the snake being bitten by the rat trying to escape the snake

imo,no one supervising the feed,would be quick enough to stop the above,should it occur

the snake strikes,catches the wrong part of the rat,rat bites snake,all in under a second,not even bruce lee was quick enough to stop that

i have no moral issues with live feeding,if all a snake will take is live,then so be it

i'd rather have the peace of mind that comes with,fresh killed or frozen thawed

cheers shaun

[exwizard]

First off, Im not here trying to convert anyone else into a different way of feeding their snakes. After all, its their snakes, not mine. We have rodent customers who prefer f/t and as a result we vacuum seal and freeze their rodents for them no extra charge. I understand all the arguments on both sides so I really dont want to debate the fact that I feed live. In this case, Im in agreement with Mykee. We breed our own feeders and one of the keys to safer feeding is having pet tame rodents. However there is still risk and I am aware of that but weve chosen to feed live for reasons discussed in other threads and I wont get into them here. I fully respect other peoples choices to feed either f/t or f/k. As I said before, its a personal choice of what to do with your own pets because nobody has a say over what happens to your pets more than you. All other people can do is advise but its still up to the owner to take that advice or not.