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Feeding in cage or in a separate enclosure?

Which way do you feed?

  • Strictly in a separate enclosure.

    Votes: 37 48.7%

  • Strictly in their regular home enclosure

    Votes: 10 13.2%

  • Some of both.

    Votes: 29 38.2%
  • Total voters
    76
I do both. A few of mine won't eat unless in their homes, so those get taken out, weighed, cleaned, and put back in and fed. Most of them eat in separate containers though. I do a deeper clean on feeding days and scrub water dishes so they just eat while I get that done.
 
As I only have one snake it's not much work to feed strictly in a separate tub.
Immediately after I put him in the tub he knows and enters hunting mode (even if it's mid-day and he was all sleepy when I took him out). Then I take out the mice out of the freezer and thaw them in warm water next to that tub's vents- and he would go tongue-crazy near that vent. After the mice are thawed he jumps up and snatches them off the tongs the second I open the lid.

My feeling is that this dinner routine ensures a strong feeding response. It's also a great opportunity to clean up his tank, change water etc.
 
I tend to put the snakes in a desperate feeding tub. Mostly so I can clean out their cages, weigh them and make sure they eat.

Sometimes if life is busy I feed them in the tank to save time. Both seem to work fine.
 
Going by the general rule of thumb, the amount of "mixed" and "in viv" answers is unexpected. I'm mixed here. Plissken was always in a feeding container, but since Isis wasn't mine, she's used to in viv eating. Probably gonna try to break that habit over time.
 
Nythain said:
Going by the general rule of thumb....
Click to expand...

What rule of thumb? Feeding outside the viv is a relatively new practice.
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I don't see a whole lot of upside to it, am 100% certain I would be bitten more often doing it. It's become commonplace because of the Internet, I blame Nanci! (her method actually makes perfect sense to me, but I don't weigh my snakes weekly)

I really like my friend Clay Davenport's thoughts on the matter: http://www.arbreptiles.com/lastword/snakefeeding.shtml
 
I feed all of my corns in a seperate bin. The three adults I just got from Beth are still a little unsure of that, seeing as the male especially is a little high-strung. The females took a minute to figure it out, but then they got so enthusiastic about "this is food place" that I feared for my fingers, and one of the girls tried eating her paper towel. (BTW, that kind of feeding response is exactly why I feed in separate bins to keep an eye on the boogers.)

I always feed my king in his viv. I hide his food in various places so he has to "hunt" for it. I think it's had a very positive influence on him. He doesn't seem to fear us as much since we've started doing this. While he used to always hide, now I see him out a lot because it's a random reward system--if he's out and exploring, a mouse might magically appear!
 
I do it just out of convenience - since I'm already cleaning, I might as well feed them while they're in a separate holding bin anyway. I have no issues with feeding in the viv and don't think it has any relevance on a snake's temperament.
 
I feed my two in the kitchen sink - clean it out well, thaw mice in warm water in sink, remove mice when warmed through, dry out sink, and feed snakes one at a time in the plugged dry sink. They definitely go looking for a mouse as soon as they see that sink!
 
Rigby & Marcy said:
I feed my two in the kitchen sink
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Umm... would that be the sink that later houses the human food cutlery and dishes? That is used to prepare the food that you eat?

I was under the impression that the salmonella hazard came from the frozen mice, through the snake's digestive system to their dropping. That's Why I use gloves to clean out the tank and wash my hands with antibacterial soap after handling the snake or its food. It seems a bit.. unhygienic? to use the kitchen sink for that?
 
I've been thawing mice in the kitchen sink (in bowls with running water) for nearly ten years, and I haven't gotten salmonella or any other disease. NOT saying it's safe- but I actually hadn't even considered that aspect!
 
I rinse the sink out before and after with antibacterial dish soap. I also have a dishwasher and don't wash dishes or prepare food in the sink. But I've been doing this almost a year and nobody has been sick. I think people are way too paranoid about sanitation these days.
 
Me too. I eat food off the floor at work- ten second rule!! I work at a hospital. Everyone is horrified, but the last time I called in sick was 2005...
 
I feed strictly in their enclosures. hatchling to yearlings are on paper so no issue with accidently digesting substrate. sub adult to adult are on aspen so I clear an end of the tub and feed them there. As for food aggression, only the king snakes are aggressive at feeding time and I usually get bit by one of them no matter how careful I am. The corns and rat snakes are very gentle eaters. The beauty's and milks like to eat in private so after cleaning I put the FT in the clear end and they go back in the rack and I check on them later. Since feeding and cleaning takes hours it just isn't feasible to feed in a separate container.
It's funny ( not to the people selling the snake ) that at almost every reptile expo I go to and handle snakes, A king snake always mistakes my fingers for food. I'm 3 for 3 this year. I bought the last one and named him Fingers. King snakes just love the way I taste ha-ha
 
For a lot of mine I do a combo. For yearlings a clear plastic shoebox gets set down in the viv, snake gets scooped or hooked and placed in the shoebox, viv gets closed up. Generally they'll eat it in the shoebox and then crawl out when they're done and I can come back and remove the shoebox. Babies get a deli cup instead of a shoebox.

The adult rack is all on paper towels or newspaper so they just get fed in-tub. With those big poos I hose out the whole tubs after they go, but yearlings and babies can get spot cleaned.
 
One thing I'm curious about on this topic is why it seems so exclusive to snakes. I'd assume it has to do with how great their sense of smell is, but I rarely see feeding out of the enclosure recommended for say, a bearded dragon. I've fed all kinds of different animals inside their vivs and they've never associated my hand with food... They know the tongs mean food, not my hand.

Regardless, I do a bit of both. I use aspen for snakes so I have to watch out for swallowing substrate when I feed inside the enclosure, but I will use a separate enclosure for weighing or if I want to clean the viv too. Snakes get so excited and rowdy when they smell food and I just feel like you are more likely to get accidentally bit trying to put a snake in a tub when it knows it's going to be fed, but the individual personalities of snakes definitely matter. I just think that if you use tongs, you aren't going to get bit. To each their own, though!
 
For bearded dragons, they are often kept on slate or a similar substrate, with maybe a separate sand area, so they aren't going to ingest their food. If they ingest sand, they WILL get an impaction. Uromastyxes are kept on millet, which they eat, so if they ingest it, which they do, it's part of their diet. It has worked well for me to feed various toads in a separate container, because it makes it easier for them to eat their fill, but then I can remove all the crickets/worms, whatever and put them back in their container, rather than have them hiding about the toad's enclosure, possibly chewing on the toad since they weren't eaten. Plus it gives me a good idea about how much the toad is consuming- rather than the insects just disappearing into the vivarium never to be seen again.
 
Not sure if it makes a difference?

Doesn't seem to sway kingsnakes one bit. Inside or out.... If they can tag you.... They will. Either way... No big deal. ; )
 
Nanci said:
For bearded dragons, they are often kept on slate or a similar substrate, with maybe a separate sand area, so they aren't going to ingest their food. If they ingest sand, they WILL get an impaction. Uromastyxes are kept on millet, which they eat, so if they ingest it, which they do, it's part of their diet. It has worked well for me to feed various toads in a separate container, because it makes it easier for them to eat their fill, but then I can remove all the crickets/worms, whatever and put them back in their container, rather than have them hiding about the toad's enclosure, possibly chewing on the toad since they weren't eaten. Plus it gives me a good idea about how much the toad is consuming- rather than the insects just disappearing into the vivarium never to be seen again.
Click to expand...

I own a beardie, so I know about the substrate. I was thinking more about aggressiveness. As in, why people say a snake should be fed outside of the enclosure because it will associate you opening the enclosure with food and become aggressive... then why wouldn't a lizard be the same? There's probably some obvious answer that I haven't thought of. I do like your reason for feeding in a separate container though. Makes sense. :D
 
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