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**GRaphic warning** Yet ANOTHER Ball python left with live mouse over night pictures.

Fenderplayer108 said:
What is the background on this picture? ....
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I've seen this picture on the Pro Exotics website. I believe the photo is theirs (for proper credits).

According to their site write-up, the snake was alive in the photo but was put down shortly after because of the injuries.
 
This picture was also over on the Morelia Viridis forum. I still don't care how vigilant you are. A mouse or rat can easily bite and damage the face of a snake even while you stand there waiting for the snake to strike. The video of the mouse "kissing the snake" that was on here a while back is a perfect example. The mouse could have as easily bitten the snake as sniff it. The owner would have sat there and watched it happen because they are figuring the snake is going to strike "any minute". While they're waiting for it....the mouse has already bitten. Unless your snake absolutely won't eat f/t or stunned, I would not do it. One of these days I'm going to follow up on my threat to scan all the pages of damage done by mice and rats to snakes that are in my surgical book and post them.
 
i have no problem feeding live to my snakes at times. usually its only in a case of if i run out of f/t but if a snake gets that beat up and does not attack back their was something wrong with the snake imho. nature has a way of taking care of itself. if their was something wrong then nature took its course and removed it. they eat live in the wild(obviously not in an enclosed box) but you get the point. catching and hunting live mice is great exercise for a snake that does not get any. which i believe is a reason for egg binding. thats why i try and feed a few live meals for the first month before mating just to give my girls some exercise
adam
 
The snake in the wild does not have a mouse show up when it's not hungry either. It goes hunting. We put food in there when they aren't hungry and expect them to eat.
 
farfrumugen said:
i have no problem feeding live to my snakes at times. usually its only in a case of if i run out of f/t but if a snake gets that beat up and does not attack back their was something wrong with the snake imho. nature has a way of taking care of itself. if their was something wrong then nature took its course and removed it. they eat live in the wild(obviously not in an enclosed box) but you get the point. catching and hunting live mice is great exercise for a snake that does not get any. which i believe is a reason for egg binding. thats why i try and feed a few live meals for the first month before mating just to give my girls some exercise
adam
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First of all, lemme address your first comment.
but if a snake gets that beat up and does not attack back their was something wrong with the snake imho.
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That is probably the most ignorant thing I have ever heard on this site. If a helpless child was getting attacked by a adult, and the child didn't fight back, there is something wrong with the child?
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I understand your reasoning, but I think saying that was a little bit to far.
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I will tell you why a snake won't fight back. It's because of breeders, its because of breeding efforts. We breed the snakes to eat F/T meals, which is what there nature is. It's not a choice on the "snakes" part, its just the snake does not have it in there nature anymore.
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Personally, I would NEVER feed live. The risk is to much on its own. Face it, there is no safe way to feed live.
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"We are responsible for the health and well-being of our animals in captivity. That means keeping them properly housed, heated, humidified and fed. And that means keeping them safe from avoidable harm."
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Ryan McCullough
MC Reptiles
 
Meg and Ryan both great points. In the wild they aren't in a confined place with a mouse. They can get away if that want to and usually there wouldn't be a mouse show up and fight a snake in the wild the mouse would run, but they cant in a cage.

Adam it is your choice on how you feed but I would think they one time you wouldn't feed live is to females before and after they mate for safety sake. How do you feed? Put the mouse in the cage and watch to make sure they eat without problems?
 
Fenderplayer108 said:
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I will tell you why a snake won't fight back. It's because of breeders, its because of breeding efforts. We breed the snakes to eat F/T meals, which is what there nature is. It's not a choice on the "snakes" part, its just the snake does not have it in there nature anymore.
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I'm not sure that I believe this to be the case, Ryan. I think it has more to do with the fact that killing a mouse is something that most snakes only do when they are hungry. Snakes are not particularly smart animals, so they rely on instinct. Instinct tells a snake to kill a mouse when the snake's hungry, and to flee a mouse intent on making a meal of it. Can't do that in a captive enclosure (as has been stated by others). It's hard for us to conceptualize that they cannot make the connection between killing for sustenance and killing for defense, but this seems to often be the case.

Having said all of that, I've seen quite a few examples of corn snakes killing mice that they didn't end up eating. But this doesn't really prove anything. These snakes may have been hungry enough to kill, but for some other reason they rejected the mouse (e.g. prey too large; funky odor).
 
Roy Munson said:
I'm not sure that I believe this to be the case, Ryan. I think it has more to do with the fact that killing a mouse is something that most snakes only do when they are hungry. Snakes are not particularly smart animals, so they rely on instinct. Instinct tells a snake to kill a mouse when the snake's hungry, and to flee a mouse intent on making a meal of it. Can't do that in a captive enclosure (as has been stated by others). It's hard for us to conceptualize that they cannot make the connection between killing for sustenance and killing for defense, but this seems to often be the case.

Having said all of that, I've seen quite a few examples of corn snakes killing mice that they didn't end up eating. But this doesn't really prove anything. These snakes may have been hungry enough to kill, but for some other reason they rejected the mouse (e.g. prey too large; funky odor).
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True. I was not trying to put any breeders down (That's silly) I was just giving logic to my reasoning.
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Ryan McCullough
MC Reptiles
 
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Roy Munson again.


I don't disagree with Meg and Ryasn totally.. I don't have many issues with feeding live if I have too.. Actually it has been coming down to stunned lately..

It is sad to see an animal end up like this, I might let a bite slide by, heavens knows Jen gets bit by the damn mice more often than the hungry corn snakes ever have, but we definantly are set in a vigel when it is feeding time.. Yes, every animal in our group is monitered when they are fed, or bred.. To much of our personal time involved in these aniamals.. I have a few pets, but I have a lot of cool future breeders as well.. So..

Regards.. Tim of T and J
 
I still want to know how you would plan on stopping a mouse or rat before it bites your snake. How do you know when it's going to bite? When you watched the video that had been posted on here (the mouse kissing my snake video) could you tell when that mouse was going to go up and sniff the snake on the nose and not bite it instead? Didn't you expect the snake to strike? So you sit there and wait for that inevitable strike that doesn't happen....and your snake has no nose. Then it's a very nice surgery for reconstruction to remove all the scar tissue in the nose so that your snake can breath again normally. I don't know how it's ever safe to feed a live animal in an enclosed area. There's not enough room for the snake to move around if necessary. I stun first if I must feed live. If you have one that absolutely won't eat f/t or stunned though, you have to do, what you have to do.
 
Meg was wondering..

I still want to know how you would plan on stopping a mouse or rat before it bites your snake. How do you know when it's going to bite?
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99.9% of the time in my case Meg, the critters are pretty darn hungry, with the only response being the gasping squeek.. I tend to be on the conservative side of feeding with the older ones, essentially they are not starving, but they are not fatties eithier. Yes, there is a chance that they could get bit, but I have found myself Meg when it happens it is pretty rare. Hench which is why Jen has switched over to the stun method most often now as the group continues to grow bigger and larger..

You don't know when they will bite, but they are going to try 100% of the time when they get coiled, so a bite is essentially unavoidable.. I think this is the answer you were looking for, which is really no different than what they would get in the wild.. I understand what you are saying Meg, but considering my location, and resources I make due with what I can, even if it can't seem to be agreeable.. Like you Meg, we try our best for all of our animals.

Anywho, I hope you and your better half ( Or is Meg the better half ?? ) have a wonderful Christmas, hopefully with some of that white stuff too ..

Regards... and thoughts of the season.. Tim of T and J
 
How do you feed? Put the mouse in the cage and watch to make sure they eat without problems?[/QUOTE]


i am always watching them when i feed live . i would never leave them alone. if no interest is shown(which is very rare) then the mouse is removed and givin to another. it sometimes takes up to an hour or 2 just cause i have 2 or 3 slow eaters and i only feed 1 at a time so i can watch and not worry about having to try look at multiple cages
adam
 
Fenderplayer108 said:
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That is probably the most ignorant thing I have ever heard on this site. If a helpless child was getting attacked by a adult, and the child didn't fight back, there is something wrong with the child?
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sorry if i offended you but it is not ignorance by any means it is a completely logical statement.

as far as your comparison goes you need a better one, a human child compared to an human adult is not even close to the same. it would be more like an adult human being attacked by a chicken.

but in my experiance with this(one who has taken many rescued snakes) it seem to happen to balls more (not sure why) and yes it is always the keepers fault. but that animal may not have had enough energy to fight back due to problems with not having the proper enviroment or disease due to cleanliness. if the food was actually a adult rat and the ball a baby then i see why it wouldnt fight back but for an animal to stay alive that long being eaten alive their is a good chance it was sick in some way. i worded my statement wrong by saying that their WAS something wrong and should of said PROBALY something wrong it has been proven many times over and over that nature cleanses itself. even if nature is in a glass cube.
adam
 
farfrumugen said:
sorry if i offended you but it is not ignorance by any means it is a completely logical statement.

as far as your comparison goes you need a better one, a human child compared to an human adult is not even close to the same. it would be more like an adult human being attacked by a chicken.
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This isn't an attack, but comparing an adult human to a snake is an even worse comparison. You're assuming that a snake's feeding instincts and defensive instincts are connected in the same way that an adult human's are. Snakes are not capable of rational thought. You and I realize that our offensive weapons can also be used defensively. Snakes don't necessarily make that connection. A snake that doesn't use its offensive skills defensively is not necessarily a weak specimen. :shrugs:
 
I agree. If every snake used it's defenses all the time,then every wild snake I ever caught would have bitten me. On the contrary, very few have and that was only after it felt completely intimidated and backed into a corner. I might add that it was one bite only and after that it offered no other bites. Who knows? That ball might have been bitten so badly in the face and head that it died and then the mouse or more likely in this case, a rat, ate it after that.
 
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