• 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.

Do you ever HAVE TO feed live mice?

P

Protector

New member
I don't have any snakes yet but plan to one day and I was reading up on what you feed young corns (since I suppose I would be buying a baby from a breeder) and have seen that some corns will refuse to eat for awhile when you first bring them home and people have to resort to all sorts of methods to get them to eat.

I could never ever feed live and the thought of maybe not having a choice scares me... just how common are picky corns? Does anyone have to do that sometimes when they bring a new corn home?
 
Most snakes will take f/t (frozen/thawed), even snakes that were once wild.
A good, reputable breeder will get their babies started on eating, & you won't need to worry about having to feed live. I have never had any that don't end up taking f/t.

One thing you can do to prevent a baby from refusing to eat, especially babies, is leave them alone for the first week. You want them to be able to adjust to a new home, as stress free as possible. Some people are too excited about their new babies, & want to handle them right away, & don't give them time to adjust, & end up stressing them out, & that in turn causes them to refuse to eat. This includes offering food too soon after bringing them home.

The only time I have had to feed live, is on a couple new born hatchlings, in getting them to eat, but once they began eating, they switched to f/t quickly.

You likely won't have to worry about that, if you get one through a reputable source, that offeres established eaters.
 
If you want really close to a guarantee that your snake won't be a fussy eater, get a yearling instead of a hatchling. Though the likelyhood of a corn only eating live is low, they're usually really good eaters.
 
I've never had to with a corn, though I had two of different species that I eventually tried live out of desparation. It didn't work for me either time. >.<
 
I used to breed and for two seasons I offered live pinkies to the really stubborn non-feeders. Odd ones took live, but they didn't thrive and died anyway a couple of months later. Never managed to convert them to defrosted.

One of them didn't constrict and ate the mice butt-first. It was horrible to hear.

From that point, if they didn't eat d/f readily I'd try all the tricks to make them, but I never fed live again. I'm afraid I feel that if a Corn doesn't eat d/f then it isn't suitable as a pet.

I've never had an adult Corn that's needed live.
 
I have never had to feed live with any snake I have had - Corns, Kings, Milks, Rats.
 
Speaking from personal experience, my snake will take anything. Live, prekilled, doesn't matter, if he smells prey he will go for it and never refuse a meal.
So I wouldn't be worried over this, if all else fails you can always resort to force-feeding. And if the snake ONLY eats live no matter what you try, the chance of your snake getting hurt by a rodent is far lower than what some make it out to be. Snakes have survived for this long by killing their prey, they must be doing something right.
 
I have two snakes that will only take f/t on very rare occasion. If offered live, they go right for it. One is a sand boa (notoriously picky) and the other is a former non-feeder corn. They're both young though, so hopefully they'll eventually convert to f/t.
 
Even most 'difficult' feeders will take F/T with a little coaxing.. 'slap' feeding has worked well for me with a few difficult feeders.
 
Mrs_blakely said:
How would you go about switching a corn from live to f/t?
Click to expand...
Try fresh killed (cervically dislocated mouse still warm and twitching) for a few feedings, then fresh-killed but wriggle it by the tail (the zombie mouse dance), progress to really hot (yes, I have blowdried dead mice) thawed again doing the zombie dance.
 
I'm sorry to say I have snakes that will take both live or Frozen. For me I see it this way I personal wouldn't get a hatchling unless it has had a few meals in already. But I think that if anybody that has a snake for a pet or a breeder should be able to feed f/t or alive if it helps get food to their pet. I know I'm coming off sounding mean but what's more important your fear of feeding live or the heath of your reptile? Is there many ways to feed of course there is but sometimes live is a way you may need to go .... If feeding live is an issue maybe going the snake route maybe not a good choice imo...
 
Sinisterrodents said:
I'm sorry to say I have snakes that will take both live or Frozen. For me I see it this way I personal wouldn't get a hatchling unless it has had a few meals in already. But I think that if anybody that has a snake for a pet or a breeder should be able to feed f/t or alive if it helps get food to their pet. I know I'm coming off sounding mean but what's more important your fear of feeding live or the heath of your reptile? Is there many ways to feed of course there is but sometimes live is a way you may need to go .... If feeding live is an issue maybe going the snake route maybe not a good choice imo...
Click to expand...

I have to disagree. I have kept snakes for 17 years, and have had corns, balls, kings and rosy boas and have NEVER EVER had a snake that refused thawed. I have never had to feed live, and I wouldn't get a snake that needs live. Since I prefer easy feeding colubrids it is not much of a problem either.

I have never had to feed live and somehow I manage to have very healthy and well cared for reptiles. Who woulda thunk it?
 
starsevol said:
I have to disagree. I have kept snakes for 17 years, and have had corns, balls, kings and rosy boas and have NEVER EVER had a snake that refused thawed. I have never had to feed live, and I wouldn't get a snake that needs live. Since I prefer easy feeding colubrids it is not much of a problem either.

I have never had to feed live and somehow I manage to have very healthy and well cared for reptiles. Who woulda thunk it?
Click to expand...
I've had to feed live, Beth. Lil, Butch, Calamity all went through live-only phases. All corns. Hence why I know how to convert to f/t.
 
diamondlil said:
I've had to feed live, Beth. Lil, Butch, Calamity all went through live-only phases. All corns. Hence why I know how to convert to f/t.
Click to expand...

Oh J9, I am so sorry to hear it!
Since 1995 I have had 14 rosy boas, 2 desert kings, 3 ball pythons, a grey banded king, a florida king, a cali king, and...I am not sure how many corns but I think the number is around 60, give or take. A few fasts here and there but never significant weight loss and they always went back to eating with no troubles sooner or later.
 
To be honest, there was nothing to like about feeding live, but it is something any corn owner might have to do at some point. The choice was watching my pets starving themselves or providing stunned prey they would eat. A no-brainer for me. All of them had been started well on F/T before their hunger strikes, Lil's was as a hatchling, Butch as a yearling and Calamity was an adult who never fully became a reliable feeder again and died at around 6 years old. Lil and Butch are both good feeders.
To me stating that corns are easy to keep on F/T all their lives is in some cases misleading, as some corns don't read the handbook!
 
diamondlil said:
To be honest, there was nothing to like about feeding live, but it is something any corn owner might have to do at some point. The choice was watching my pets starving themselves or providing stunned prey they would eat. A no-brainer for me. All of them had been started well on F/T before their hunger strikes, Lil's was as a hatchling, Butch as a yearling and Calamity was an adult who never fully became a reliable feeder again and died at around 6 years old. Lil and Butch are both good feeders.
To me stating that corns are easy to keep on F/T all their lives is in some cases misleading, as some corns don't read the handbook!
Click to expand...

OK, I stand corrected. All MINE have but in any species there are sure to be wierdos out there!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top