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Do Most Feed Frozen animals ,over Live ??

J

jeff prado

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When I was a kid ,it was always live animals to snakes. Has it changed to Mostly frozen nowadays...Somebody said around 80% of people use frozen over live animals...What do you think?
 
I have about 100 snakes total now. The only ones getting live are the picky ball pythons that won't eat f/t so they get small rats, and my neonates get live feeders to get them started eating before I switch them to frozen.
 
Same here. The only animals I have that eat live are animals that won't eat f/t. I also sometimes use live for hatchlings that haven't started feeding on f/t, but I always try to convert them later. F/t is both safer and more convenient.
 
Almost all commonly kept snakes will take f/t readily. There are so many benefits to f/t over live there is simply no reason to not use f/t unless absolutely necessary.
 
:iagree::iagree::iagree:

I have started reluctant snakes on live (usually actually freshly stunned/killed), but all my snakes have been switched over to f/t as soon as possible. Apart from preventing accidental damage to the snakes from rodent bites, and ease of storage of food, freezing also helps limit the possibility of parasite or bacterial content that may be in the live feeder.
 
I only ever feed frozen thawed
,I would never forgive my self if my snakes got hurt after I've seeing some of the horror picturs from feeding live

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I feed dead prey only (either fresh-killed by me or frozen-thawed), though in the past I've HAD to use some live prey for the exceptions: they were either w/c rescues (temporary house-guests awaiting relocation), or the few that refused & had yet to learn to accept f/t prey, such as those newly born or hatched. (I no longer breed any nor do I relocate snakes, that was in a different state.) It's kinder, safer, & generally healthier (in terms of parasites) to feed f/t prey, & I'm very glad I have no fussy eaters any more (-typically ball pythons).

One other benefit of feeding dead prey: many snakes make better (calmer) pets. A vet tech I used to know insisted on feeding her snakes only live food, as that was "natural", but none of her snakes were reliable to handle as pets without biting. They were all too pumped up from doing battle with live prey, whereas I've done many hands-on type programs for all ages ("meet & greets" etc.) with my snakes, and none of them bite, ever, so we make a lot more friends for snakes that way. Let's face it, snakes still need all the good "PR" they can get.
 
Excellent observation

Excellent observation on Calmer snakes....Perhaps you may want to change your user name to CALMLIPS and be at one with your snakes.
 
jeff prado said:
Excellent observation on Calmer snakes....Perhaps you may want to change your user name to CALMLIPS and be at one with your snakes.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but my user-name* is a tribute to the numerous rattlesnakes that I knew & loved for some 20 safe years. Incidentally, they can also be influenced (with various techniques) to be calm, and to me that's really important: that snakes (or any animals we live with) do not live in FEAR of us...we know that stress suppresses the immune system (humans or animals) and that's probably part of the reason my snakes tend to live such long & healthy lives. No matter how small (ie. ineffective) you believe a snake's brain to be, it's quite obvious that they both learn & retain what they know. That includes "what to be afraid of", and for most snakes, that includes eating pre-killed prey. (*I also enjoyed the series MASH- :D)
 
98% of the time I feed frozen/thawed, regardless of species. The other 2% is either live pinks or fresh killed. I mainly like frozen/thawed for the convenience and safety factor. Even though I have an established feeder rat breeding colony and could feed live about half of the time, I just don't see any good reason to. In fact, I tend to discourage my feeder customers (all 2 of them) from feeding live unless it's a picky ball python like BCR mentioned. I've actually offered my assistance in getting a couple picky ones to feed before providing live prey for them.
 
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