• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Live mouse feeding

ButtersCorns4life

ButtersCorns4life

New member
OK, well My cousins snakes haven't eaten in almost 2 weeks, and he really wants to feed them now. If they were to get live mice, is it better to feed them to his snakes live or killed? Last time we fed his snakes, they were bought live then we killed them (pinched it on the neck to break it with needle-like pliers) Then the snakes ate it with no problems. Well his mom thought that that was bad, and there was no use in doing it. She wants it to be fed live mice. Full grown mice.

So what IM asking is, is it better to take the really unlikely chance that the snake could get scratched, or bit causing an infection? Or delete all those possibilities and do what we did last time.

ps. If there is another way to put the mice down, thats faster, and more painless, please tell me.

pss. The skin does not break when I do my method. So it's not all gory...


Thanks, Butters
 
one way you can do it is,put the mouse in a plastic bag wind up and hit it on the floor this will kill or stun the mouse and you can put it in the tank from their and watch the snake have its lunch.:bang::uhoh::smash:
 
If they are adult mice yes I would kill them. You can whack them against a counter and they die quickly. I have never thought of feeding live but after getting bit today by an adult female mouse, I am sure I would never feed live. I have two teeth marks on my finger and it bled for around 10 minutes if a snake was bit like that I would imagine it could hurt the snake.
 
OK, thank you all very much for your fast, and good responses.

But, wouldn't hitting it on a table or the floor make it like... explode or something, because my Aunt (the person who is against the killing the mouse thing) says that what I did was a horrible way to kill it. And if it does explode with your method, SHE WILL EXPLODE TO!!! lol
OK, I doubt it will explode but will it like smash it's head. And how hard does he hit it on the table/floor?


Thanks again, butters
 
my snake has been fed live adult mice for five years and there hasnt been a problem yet. when i feed him i use a car antenna there just in case the mouse does start chewing on him. but it probably is safter to feed him killed mice.
 
OK thanks, but I do have one question... why do you have a car antenna?

How do you use it?


Thank you all for helping me out with my questions.
 
xerxes said:
my snake has been fed live adult mice for five years and there hasnt been a problem yet. when i feed him i use a car antenna there just in case the mouse does start chewing on him. but it probably is safter to feed him killed mice.
Click to expand...

Just because you've gotten lucky, doesn't mean it won't happen. I've seen snakes with eyes missing and parts of their nose gone. It only takes a second. Your antenna won't be enough to stop a split second strike to the eyes. Blind is blind. I would never risk it if I didn't have to. Smacking the mouse on the head is quick. It doesn't explode the head. I usually grab by the tail and just whack it on the side of a sink or table top. I've never had a mess yet, although I don't often feed live.
 
It just sucks to be a mouse. How would you rather die, bopped quickly on the head or have your rib cage squeezed so hard you can't breathe? I feed frozen thawed, but of course I have had snakes that refused f/t and had to wack live ones to feed them. I'd rather hurt a mouse than my snake though. The mouse is going to die anyway, make it as quick and painless as you can and don't leave the killing to the snake, as things can go wrong in the blink of an eye.
 
I feed Butter live, but only because that was the only thing he'd eat and he was too sick and malnourished for me to get into a battle of wills with him.

Butter has been in the clear stage following blue (or pink, in his case) for several days, but it's been 10 days since his last meal (he refused while pink) so I offered him a 24g mouse. Well, Butter was only mildly interested and mouse was busy scurrying around. Little mouse ran up to Butter and nipped him. Thankfully, it only pierced the about to be shed skin, but that was enough for me. Mouse got a flick on the back of the head, which made him very woosy. He stumblied up to Butter's nose. After a couple seconds Butter grabbed it and constricted it. The mouse regained it's senses and began to struggle, but there was nothing near it's mouth to bite.

From this meal on, Butter's dinner will be stunned with a solid flick (in school, we called it a thump) to the back of it's head. After a few meals like that, I'll try pre-killing. After a while of that, I'll try frozen/thawed.

Long story short, even sitting right next to the feeding tub and watching carefully, there was no way I could get to that mouse before it nipped Butter.

Look up how to do a cervical dislocation. It's easy to do and is quick and painless for the mouse. Yes, it will kick and twitch for about 15 seconds, but it is already dead. Mice have simple nervous systems so the nerves are still sending impusles to the muscles, but the brain is getting no sensations and it is not feeling anything.

IF you're quick about it, you can offer the snakes the twitching mouse.
 
I tried to take a picture of my finger but since it's my right index, I couldn't focus the camera. It's been a few hours since the mouse bite and it still hurts, maybe I'm a sissy but dang. She bit and hung on like a pit bull I had to shake her off. If she wasn't with child she would have become snake dinner today.:eek:
 
That's nice of you Susan.. pregnant or not, any mouse that drew blood would have been wacked and fed off it it lived at Pagram residence... My female snakes would have loved the bonus bit of protein!
 
ButtersCorns4life said:
OK thanks, but I do have one question... why do you have a car antenna?

How do you use it?


Thank you all for helping me out with my questions.
Click to expand...
well...ive actually got two car antennas. one that i use for feeding, and the other one i bent into a snake hook (that i dont use) i use the antenna by sticking it in the mouses mouth (if the mouth is close to the snake) so it wont be able to bite the snake. it works farely well. i would wack the mice but xerxes likes to stalk his pray for a while before he strikes, so he wont take f/t. ive got a few examples on youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVaOY2Q5qB8
 
xerxes said:
well...ive actually got two car antennas. one that i use for feeding, and the other one i bent into a snake hook (that i dont use) i use the antenna by sticking it in the mouses mouth (if the mouth is close to the snake) so it wont be able to bite the snake. it works farely well. i would wack the mice but xerxes likes to stalk his pray for a while before he strikes, so he wont take f/t. ive got a few examples on youtube...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVaOY2Q5qB8
Click to expand...

Do you worry about your snake ingesting the substrate??
 
yeah, kinda, but i havent had a problem with it yet, he kinda packs it down once i put new in so there's not too much "loose" substrate. ive tried to feed him in a seperate tub before, but the person that had him before me raised him to feed in his viv, so if i'd put him in a seperate tub he's more focused on exploring than actually feeding.
 
MerlinsPop said:
I feed Butter live, but only because that was the only thing he'd eat and he was too sick and malnourished for me to get into a battle of wills with him.

Butter has been in the clear stage following blue (or pink, in his case) for several days, but it's been 10 days since his last meal (he refused while pink) so I offered him a 24g mouse. Well, Butter was only mildly interested and mouse was busy scurrying around. Little mouse ran up to Butter and nipped him. Thankfully, it only pierced the about to be shed skin, but that was enough for me. Mouse got a flick on the back of the head, which made him very woosy. He stumblied up to Butter's nose. After a couple seconds Butter grabbed it and constricted it. The mouse regained it's senses and began to struggle, but there was nothing near it's mouth to bite.

From this meal on, Butter's dinner will be stunned with a solid flick (in school, we called it a thump) to the back of it's head. After a few meals like that, I'll try pre-killing. After a while of that, I'll try frozen/thawed.

Long story short, even sitting right next to the feeding tub and watching carefully, there was no way I could get to that mouse before it nipped Butter.

Look up how to do a cervical dislocation. It's easy to do and is quick and painless for the mouse. Yes, it will kick and twitch for about 15 seconds, but it is already dead. Mice have simple nervous systems so the nerves are still sending impusles to the muscles, but the brain is getting no sensations and it is not feeling anything.

IF you're quick about it, you can offer the snakes the twitching mouse.
Click to expand...
That's what I do, Bruce. Cervical dislocation and offer the mouse while it's still twitching. I've stunned hoppers before then seen them get up so this way I know the worst that can happen is a refusal.
 
Oy, i don't think I could kill a mouse. Perhaps the cervical dislocation method... but eeeee. I would have a lot of trouble doing that.

Luckily for me Val takes F/T very happily.

I've never killed anything before... I don't think I could bring myself to do it.
But I would also never put a live mouse in with my snake... unless it was a pinkie. Its just completely out of the question. I had pet mice when I was younger, and those bites are surprisingly bad. I know snakes are actually really sturdy.... but there's a reason that they're usually a looooot prettier in captivity. They don't get beat up if you feed prekilled.
 
What do snakes eat in the wild they don't have devoted owners thawing teir mice out for them,, as corn will try to escape an attacking mouse i would put the mouse in the tank BUT stand by and watch carefully with the pliers in hand or a bag, what ever method you feel most comfortablw with and which will kill the mouse the fastest?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top