Quote:
Originally Posted by rocketcrotch
btw, when I do feed live, I do not simply watch. It involves much more than that.
|
Hello! I know you are 'tired' of this, but I just read all these post and had to comment since I am speaking from my own experiences.
I used to feed live back in 1998 because I didn't know there were other options. I fed live jumbo rats to my adult boa. I always held the rat by the tail and let her grab the head, I always stayed there to supervise. Months went by, multiple feedings per month, everything was fine. Then, one day, she grabs the rat, coils and goes about her business. She grabbed the rat right behind the head. The rat's mouth was right up against her neck and he started biting her. I started hitting the rat's head with the screwdriver I always held trying to knock it out and get it to let go of my snake. She is just coiled and doing her business. I was not able to knock out the rat and she finally pulled it into the water and drowned it while coiled. I was very lucky the bites were not worse, all she ended up with is some scars. I thought 'holy smokes, well that was crazy!' and kept doing what I was doing. About 4 months later, the same thing happened again. This time I was able to knock the rat out and he only got one bite. The very next day I started researching online and found out they could take pre-killed. Switched to p/k and now f/t. It's been 10 years and never again had any problems.
It only took seconds for that rat to inflict 3 large bites on my boa's neck. I've also heard of a snake (I believe a
gtp?) that was fed live, it always took the rat's head and the rat bit the inside of the snake's mouth.
I just wanted to share my story so you might see that there can be issues even with carefully supervised feedings. If you can switch your snake over to p/k or f/t you may be saving yourself and your snake trouble later on. You never know when something unexpected will happen and my thinking is 'why take the chance'? I still hold the feeders by their tails (with tongs now) and wiggle them, make the snakes hunt for them through the enclosure and they all strike and coil to 'kill' their prey just like they do when it's live. I don't think I'm taking anything away from them by feeding f/t except the unnecessary risk of damage.
Good luck!
