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Feeding live to F/T babies ??

To answer the original question, I don't think that snakes have any trouble switching from f/t to live. Instinct kicks in.

I don't see why killing the mice before putting them in with your snake would make the mice not fresh... the snake usually kills the mouse before eating it. I think that it is the same thing.

CO2 is as simple as mixing vinegar with baking soda or getting some dry ice.
I can't imagine that someone doesn't have vinegar and baking soda.

Although pinkies won't suffocate very easily, so in that case putting them somewhere cold for a few minutes will do the job.
You can have them die without having them freeze in the freezer. They will still be fresh and warm.

I doubt a snake prefers live food.
I think any change in behavior is fear-based... they strike and coil because they are afraid that the mouse may hurt them.
Which is why many snakes won't coil pinkies- there is no threat.

I think that feeding live may be unduly stressful for a snake... I prefer having my food already dead rather than having to kill it. Especially if the food has the chance of scratching my eye out.
 
alpine said:
Sorry you disagree with me starsevol, but after the way you handled the whole situation I could really care less to what you have to say to me now. I know it's a heated topic and get's some worked up, but you should handle yourself better. Thanks for your opinion and the criticism.
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I probably should handle myself better, but I loathe cruelty.
If you truly are a vet, you should understand that.
And want to do what's right by EVERY living thing in your care.

I also believe in karma, and that cruelty gets rewarded down the road.
I only hope it is not in the form of your girl losing an eye.
But if you do work for a vet, at least you'll get a discount.
 
Alpine, your scenario with the fresh steak vs the frozen one would only be relevant if you were speaking of Pre-Killed vs. Frozen/thawed.

The scenario that you should really be looking at is, If you eat deer meat. Lets say that I place you in a cage with a live deer, generally in the wild the deer would either run off, or chase you up a tree. But, in a cage, the deer, if cornered would tear you up and possibly kill you. It is completely possible for snakes to escape if things go bad in the wild, but in a cage, no matter how close you watch, bad things can happen. Look up Murphy's Law. Eventually things go wrong.

I hope that I showed you how messed up your tired scenario was, because I have heard it used many times before. I have also hears "Its more natural", but it is not natural to cage an animal in a 1foot by 2 foot cage and throw a potentially dangerous animal in there with them, It is called Thunderdome, and they made a movie about it with Mel Gibson and Tina Turner. Two enter, One leaves. Sometimes the Champ gets killed or terribly injured.

Oh, and even in the wild, the prey sometimes kills the predator.

Also, This is why I do not feed live. This is my snake, she was fed live her whole life by a guy in the German AF in Alamogordo NM. He gave her to a friend who turned her over to one of the pet stores where I got her. This is her Live Feeding Injury, that I am surprised did not take her life. She was very lucky.
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I do work at a vet for a vet who gave me these recommendations. It has been my extensive experience that my snakes eat and do better over all on live prey. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe snakes have evolved for MILLIONS of years to eat live prey and swallow them whole. Do please list for me as many wild snakes you know of that are scavengers?? Furthermore while investigating those wild snakes tell me how many you find with no eyes etc...???
As far as karma, I believe it is worst to waste a life, which is what I found to happen more often with killed prey. If you put it in and they dont eat it you have to toss it. What kind of karma is that?
Also when using killed prey there is a deterioration in nutrition over time with freezing and when bought frozen you can not be sure of the kill and freeze date or how they were fed(gut loaded) before the feeding. I feed live to ensure there is minimal waste of life, since I do obviously care or I would not be in this field, Bethany, and I feed live because nutritionally it is in the best interest I believe. I do not leave prey in unattended or for any extensive period of time since that is where most of the trauma comes from, when the snake doesnt eat it in turn gets eaten on.
Finally, if you are going to attack my care of animals and address my "cruelty" I ask how many animals lives you have saved? I have managed vets for 13 years, worked in emergency clinics, worked at shelters, fostered orphaned wild animals, bred everything from hamsters to horses, cared for literally animals of EVERY classification over the course of my ENTIRE life since, oh yeah, my father is also a VET. What again are your qualifications Bethany?
 
I agree, fresh mice woule be preferable, most Corns will take F/T with no issue. With something like a Ball Python, most will only take live readily. I feed a lot of live rodents at work and I have never had a snake hurt by a live rodent. I have done literally thousands of feedings. Rodents bite snakes when they're left in with them for long periods of time. I feed all of my personal snakes F/T, or F/K. I just bonk them on the head and feed them to the snakes. Personally I would just feed frozen if your snake will take it, reduces risk of anything happening. If you're worried about the content of frozen mice you can put a little multivitamin powder on the rodents when you feed.
 
You are NOT the only person who works for a vet or is a vet. This forum is FULL of us. So you can just step off that horse.
 
If you look at the head of my snake, The brown on the top of her nose was from the one live feeding that I did. The mouse immediately turned around and bit her. It does not take "long periods" this was in the blink of an eye. Yes the longer a live mouse is in with the animal, the more risk you are taking, but you take that risk once you put the mouse in the cage.
 
Carinata said:
I agree, fresh mice woule be preferable, most Corns will take F/T with no issue. With something like a Ball Python, most will only take live readily. I feed a lot of live rodents at work and I have never had a snake hurt by a live rodent. I have done literally thousands of feedings. Rodents bite snakes when they're left in with them for long periods of time. I feed all of my personal snakes F/T, or F/K. I just bonk them on the head and feed them to the snakes. Personally I would just feed frozen if your snake will take it, reduces risk of anything happening. If you're worried about the content of frozen mice you can put a little multivitamin powder on the rodents when you feed.
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Thank you for the middle of the road answer Carinata. There's always two ways to do something, but there's no need to go bashing on others when they do something you don't agree with.
 
alpine said:
I do work at a vet for a vet who gave me these recommendations. It has been my extensive experience that my snakes eat and do better over all on live prey. Correct me if I am wrong, but I do believe snakes have evolved for MILLIONS of years to eat live prey and swallow them whole. Do please list for me as many wild snakes you know of that are scavengers?? Furthermore while investigating those wild snakes tell me how many you find with no eyes etc...???
As far as karma, I believe it is worst to waste a life, which is what I found to happen more often with killed prey. If you put it in and they dont eat it you have to toss it. What kind of karma is that?
Also when using killed prey there is a deterioration in nutrition over time with freezing and when bought frozen you can not be sure of the kill and freeze date or how they were fed(gut loaded) before the feeding. I feed live to ensure there is minimal waste of life, since I do obviously care or I would not be in this field, Bethany, and I feed live because nutritionally it is in the best interest I believe. I do not leave prey in unattended or for any extensive period of time since that is where most of the trauma comes from, when the snake doesnt eat it in turn gets eaten on.
Finally, if you are going to attack my care of animals and address my "cruelty" I ask how many animals lives you have saved? I have managed vets for 13 years, worked in emergency clinics, worked at shelters, fostered orphaned wild animals, bred everything from hamsters to horses, cared for literally animals of EVERY classification over the course of my ENTIRE life since, oh yeah, my father is also a VET. What again are your qualifications Bethany?
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My only qualifications are that I do not allow any living thing in my care to suffer. And that is one thing you can't boast.
All the wonderful things you do don't matter to any animal that suffers because of you. A terrified mouse gasping for breath in your snakes coils does not care about anything else you have done.
Neither do I when it comes down to other creatures suffering that you don't care about. They ALL feel pain and fear, right?

Please read the other posts. There is no good reason why you can't humanely kill the prey MOMENTS before you feed it out to your snake, if you are so certain that fresh is better. That would still give your snake the exact meal she would have gotten from live without the danger, and it would give the mouse a painless death. CO2 chambers are easy to build, and cervical dislocation is easy to learn.
 
Thanks for the reps!

I think people get confused between a snake being 'enthusiastic', acting on instinct, or being afraid.

Snakes are so unlike a cat or dog.... they will freeze when scared, which we may interpret as them calming down but they are really doing the opposite.

They may bite us out of fear OR because they mistake us for food OR because they are babies and instinct made them bite whatever moved.

They may respond more to live food... but IMO, it is just them being afraid or cautious- or possibly just instinctual behavior that has no emotional connection.

I think people who argue that live is better have one main reason: they like watching their corn eat live food.

I hunt. I eat meat. I'm not a wimp when it comes to killing things or handling death....
but feeding live pinkies/pups and hearing their whimpers and screams as they are eaten alive makes me shaky and teary.

I have to feed ball pythons live right now... until I sell them.
I have fed live pinkies to reluctant baby corns.
I don't enjoy it- at all.

And I don't CARE if the corn prefers it... even if they did, which they don't.

My cat may PREFER to run around the neighborhood, but he is an inside cat because it is safer.
Kids may PREFER to run into the street, but we teach them not to because it is dangerous.

Experience of breeders shows that snakes live long and healthy lives on f/t... so it isn't a health issue- except if you do feed live and your snake gets a parasite or injured.

So, really, I'm just selfish. There is no way I'm going to endure the mental trauma, possible vet bills, and inconvenience of keeping live rodents around for my snakes who are healthy on f/t.
 
You DON"T think the mouse is afraid or fearful when u or whoever pulls it out of the cage to kill it instead of the snake??
If i am worried about the snake or the prey I stun them first...mostly my point is don't get self righteous and condescending and don't try to blast my care of animals because I will go toe to toe with you any day of the week as to how WELL my animals are cared for. Happiness of them all is my foremost concern but the food chain and circle of life requires the sacrifice of some lives for others.
I say ultimately to each his own, if your snake will eat it and you are concerned feed frozen or fresh killed, but i dont think it makes me the devil to feed stunned or live. I also don't think your opinion is the end all be all. Sorry.
 
I have gotten ball pythons that would only eat live to eat f/t. It is hard work but it happens. I have a spotted python that will not eat f/t so I prefer to feed him pre-killed.

Again look into some meat science articles about how much nutrition is lost when freshing meat. Its not a whole lot.

And just because one person out of 4 pages says its ok... doesnt mean its right! just saying
 
Alpine, in my opinion you started this thread just to argue your point. Sadly, its been done a million times on this forum and many other forums. Search button again is a nifty lil feature that could of avoided this. You said it yourself, You KNEW this was going to start a flame war. So instead of doing a tiny bit of research yourself you started the thread knowing full well what kind of reaction you would get... nuff said!
 
beautifullywild77 said:
I have gotten ball pythons that would only eat live to eat f/t. It is hard work but it happens. I have a spotted python that will not eat f/t so I prefer to feed him pre-killed.

Again look into some meat science articles about how much nutrition is lost when freshing meat. Its not a whole lot.

And just because one person out of 4 pages says its ok... doesnt mean its right! just saying
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I'm not condoning straight live feedings. If you can do F/T, do it! It will save you possible headache. I work with thousands of Ball Pythons at work, some will occasionally take F/T, but not with a ton of regularity. So we feed live to adults and both F/T and live to babies. And we have a procedure we must follow to ensure that the snakes aren't harmed. I would highly suggest feeding F/T if possible
 
alpine said:
You DON"T think the mouse is afraid or fearful when u or whoever pulls it out of the cage to kill it instead of the snake??
If i am worried about the snake or the prey I stun them first...mostly my point is don't get self righteous and condescending and don't try to blast my care of animals because I will go toe to toe with you any day of the week as to how WELL my animals are cared for. Happiness of them all is my foremost concern but the food chain and circle of life requires the sacrifice of some lives for others.
I say ultimately to each his own, if your snake will eat it and you are concerned feed frozen or fresh killed, but i dont think it makes me the devil to feed stunned or live. I also don't think your opinion is the end all be all. Sorry.
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All 48 of my snakes eat it. No bite wounds, scars or missing eyes on any of them either!
Of course it is your decision to risk your snakes well being, and to continue to be cruel to the prey.
As far as my opinion goes, the risks to your snake are real.
That is not opinion.
On feeding day an animal will suffer pain that it would not be suffering otherwise. That is not opinion, that is real.
What I think of people like you, well yes, that is opinion.
Carry on!
 
Carinata said:
I'm not condoning straight live feedings. If you can do F/T, do it! It will save you possible headache. I work with thousands of Ball Pythons at work, some will occasionally take F/T, but not with a ton of regularity. So we feed live to adults and both F/T and live to babies. And we have a procedure we must follow to ensure that the snakes aren't harmed. I would highly suggest feeding F/T if possible
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Thats fine and dandy, I am not trying argue with you. I was telling the OP one persons opinion of it out of 4 pages isnt much to go on.

Besides, this is a corn snake forum. Well have different animals and we share our experiences. But honestly, corn snakes and ball pythons are two totally different snakes with extremely different temperments, requirements and husbandary. I am not saying Im an expert. I am far from it. I belong to a lot of different forums and the consensus is f/t or pre-killed is safer for your snakes. PERIOD!
 
Why does this forum have to behave like this? It's a phenomenon I have never seen on any other forum. If you don't agree with someone they are instantaneously aweful people oranimal abusers. I we're attacking this person that has the same passion we do and in abusing them, we separate them from the herp community. This is a time of great turmoil for our community, we're facing some devestating legislation, and we continue to squabble like this. We need to band together, agree to disagree and not make people think the herp community. We treat our own like crap because we don't see eye to eye. We're all gonna have karma boot us in the ass when we get all our animals banned.
 
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