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Our desire to feed live.

attackturtle

attackturtle

Registered Superhero
I posted this in response to the live mice ok thread but dont think it's getting read and I wanted to get more opinions from people.


Dont take this rant as a blast if you feed live. I dont care if you do, whatever your reason. I 100% understand there are snakes that wont eat unless it's live. If your reading this though and your snake will take f/t and your feeding live, just ask youself why.

My thinking is if you have a snake that will be on f/t for it's entire life, what does it matter if it can grab a live mouse and constrict it to death? I think that there is a stigma with a snake. That you should keep it's ability to be wild intact. Like it has to be able to survive on its own if it escapes your house or something. My cat is declawed and spad. She would never be able to live outside of my apartment. Fixing her drastically changed her behavior. Had we left that alone and we let her go in the wild, it would be much easier for her to go feral. Declawing her front was the last straw on any real chance she would ever have at catching prey. Even if I didnt fix her and declaw her though, I wouldnt expect her to take down small songbirds just to make sure she can do it, just in case she will forget. I wouldn't test her killing ability with small rodents, just checking if she can. I think a lot of live feeding in our hobby is brought on by this. By this want to keep your snake able to eat live. I see it with people i work with. I work in a business, 100% white collar and Im the only one with a snake.. I tell them I have this snake and that she is just so nice. I never saw myself with a snake and I have had a lot of pets before and this is the first one that has never ever bit me or shown aggression. She is nicer then my cat! Then they find out I give it f/t food or I prekill my snake's mice if I am out of frozens and my coworkers say my snake is sissy. They call her pansy. We joke about it but there is this aura that seems to follow snakes that I feel we who actually have snakes need to do the best we can to break. I don't see how it can help this hobby. This association with an animal that can always take its own food and is independent. I think it frightens a lot of people who could be snake owners off. Starstevol recently posted that 10 years ago, f/t feeding was common, and that now it is the norm. I really hope this is true and that it becomes almost unheard of to feed a snake a live mouse. I think snake keeping could really explode if this assumption that a snake should be able to hold its own is no longer associated with snakes, mainly corns and balls.
 
I have loved snakes all my life.
As a kid I always wanted one.
The single thing that kept me from getting a snake was the "fact" that they needed live mice.
You see, I loved snakes, but I love ALL animals. Feeding an already-dead prey item, in my mind, was just like reaching into the freezer for a steak or a pork chop. But actually causing an animals death....seeing its last moments on earth....I could NEVER imagine doing that! City wuss that I am! In my lil sheltered world, food comes in little wrapped packages or in cans. Insects are one thing, but furry little warmblooded things was a totally different story!
In 1994, I started getting "reptiles" magazine, and in the back were ads for frozen mice. I was stunned!
In 1995, I discovered that the local pet shop CARRIED frozen mice (o joy!).
In summer of 1995, I got my first 2 snakes, a pair of San Felipe rosy boas named Felix and Grace (RIP).
In March of 1996, I got my first cornsnake, a dirt common amel named Calvin. (I still have Felix and Calvin).

I accept the fact that I am just a bit more squeamish and wierd than the average snake-keeper. But with all the advantages of frozen/thawed prey I truly think that it is the right thing for my snakes, as well as the right thing for me!

Some of mine constrict, some don't. As long as they eat I don't much care!
 
I think Starsevol/Beth's situation may be less than common. I think that most people who don't want to keep snakes have reasons other than the misconception that they all require live food.

But I think that it is important for anyone who wants to keep a snake to realize that there may be times when only live food will do. I have a baby rosy boa that will only eat live. If I only offer f/t, she will die. I spent a month and a half trying every f/t trick in existence, but she wasn't going for it. Finally I gave up, and the SECOND I put a live pink in with her, she vigorously constricted and ate it.

And if we're going to talk about misconceptions, I think a big one is that many keepers consider a snake that demands only live to be a "problem feeder". Sure, it's a problem for the keeper if he/she prefers to feed f/t, but it's not a defect of the snake.

And we shouldn't forget that there is evidence to support the idea that the constricting of live prey is good exercise. Some claim that this can be acheived with f/t, but I fed live for many years, and my f/t constrictors are not getting the workout that those snakes did.

And in all of those thousands of live feedings I conducted in the past, there was never a mishap causing injury to a snake. Granted, I fed them mice, and I wouldn't feed a live, strong-jawed rodent like a rat to a corn snake. I'm not saying that there is no risk when offering live mice, but there is risk associated with everything. Handling your snake is risky. You could drop it in a way that injures it. Keeping snakes in general is risky for the snakes.
 
Well, I DID say that I'm a wierdo, after all! :)

I have been very lucky so far that 95% of my hatchlings take right to thawed or washed food. The few hatchlings that won't take thawed food after I offer it 3 times goes to a friend who tries live, or whatever else it takes to get them feeding.
 
hope you don't mind

I posted this over on the thread where you posted the above and hope you don't mind if I post it here. If you would prefer I can edit it out.

When feeding live is discussed people have a tendency to indicate it is safe as long as they are watching closely and are ready to react if something bad happens. Well...You just aren't fast enough...sorry but it's as simple as that.
Place a mouse in front of your snake.
When the snake strikes, pull the mouse out of the way before it can grab it. Oh yeah, you must also somehow do this while standing there watching the animals with your hands outside the container. Obviously this just isn't going to happen.

The reason I mention this should be obvious but I will explain it anyway...That is exactly how quick the rodent can bite. In the same instant the snake bites the rodent, the rodent can bite the snake.
Sure, you might be able to stop a rodent from chewing your snake like the ones pictured in these topics over and over, but that's not the point. It only takes ONE bite.
A quick bite can take out an eye...some of you don't think that's a problem but I sure as hell don't want a $40.00, $50.00, $70.00, $100.00 dollar snake maimed by a damn rodent.
Just as easily as that eye was put out, the tooth could have entered the brain or maybe the spine, killing or paralizing your snake. Anyone who thinks a mouse or rat can't penetrate a snake's skin, skull or spine with a bite, has never had a mouse bite through a fingernail or seen concrete and sheet metal chewed through by mice.
Yes, there are some instances where snakes won't take frozen/thawed and live needs to be used, but in most of these instances a stunned or freshly killed rodent will work sufficiently. Maybe not EVERY time but most.

Then of course, you hear the "well, they do it in the wild" argument...
Unfortunately the life expectancy of a snake in the wild is very low.
I would be truly surprised if one out of five hundred made it to adulthood.
To me it is obvious that some of these die due to bites from prey.

So,...why risk it.
Is it really worth risking your snake just to watch it kill.
All of my snakes eat frozen/thawed and they have no problems constricting prey. Just wriggle a frozen/thawed mouse in front of them and they will constrict exactly the same as if it was live. You can't tell the difference. They bite, wrap their coils, search for the head and eat. No difference.

There was a question raised as to wether or not they will loose their ability to constrict over generations of captivity. Well......NO...they will not loose the instinct to constrict. They are constrictors.
That would be like birds losing their instinct to fly because we keep them caged. They haven't yet now have they? And think about how long man has been keeping birds. Take your typical parrot...hand feed it as a baby it grows to love and trust you but you keep it's wings clipped for it's own safety and to keep it from ....flying away.
Guess what...when that parrot is twenty years old and you fail to clip it's wings it will fly. Might not be the prettiest flight but it will fly. It will not have "forgotten" how. It's muscles may need strengthening but it will know how to fly. It's a bird it will fly. How many generations have birds been kept in captivity?
A constrictor will know how to constrict. That's what they do.

beyond all that, look at feeding live another way...you paid money for your snake, you may have even paid to have it shipped to you, you payed for it's enclosure, heat pad, light, water bowl, hides, substrate, decorations, possibly even a few books and when it's time to feed you paid for prey.
WHY would you want to risk that investment?
What if you had plans to breed the snake to help cover your costs in this great hobby. WHY would you want to risk those initial investments AND any possible future income?

There was a mention of pinkies and fuzzies which obviously can't do any damage but in keeping with my "why risk it" philosophy, wouldn't it make more sense to get them on frozen/thawed as soon as possible.

Just to sum up my opinion...I just don't see the sense in risking your snake's health or your financial investment, but that's just me.
 
In Finland we have a lot less fuss about whether one should feed live; it's forbidden by law to offer live prey unless the snake is at the brink of starvation. Pre-killed is of course okay too. So practically you're allowed to feed live to a snake that just WON'T eat f/t, but doing it "just for fun" is really frowned upon and considered to be animal torture. I was actually stunned to find out that it's such a matter of debate in the US. :shrugs:
 
:-offtopic Oh, and I forgot to mention: If I remember correctly, declawing cats is considered cruel torture too and all vets refuse to perform the procedure.
 
I have a major problem feeding live, mostly fear that the mouse will hurt the snake. When I got my first corn I saw a Ball Python that had been attacked by a mouse, it was awful.
I do feed live pinks and fuzzies if I'm culling and it's feeding day. I have a snake that has been a quirky eater. She'll take the slimiest F/T, but when she doesn't want to eat nothing will please her except live fuzzies. This is OK but she is an 05 and I'ld like to breed her next year. She shed yesterday I took her out today to eat nope she had two fresh stunned feeders, she cruised, she sniffed, I dangled nothing. I wanted to get something in her and had one live lg. fuzzy, she was on it in a second. She ate it and then went over and ate one of the feeder size. I toyed with the idea of giving her a live hopper but it really scares me. So those of you who feed live what do you do?
 
I chose not to feed live for the reason's Starsevol listed, mostly. In addition, I also see no reason to risk the health of my snake AND the added cost and hassle of purchasing live mice from the pet store every single week. It's just so convenient to bulk purchase F/T feeders and keep them on hand for months at a time.

If I HAD to feed live, I would, but only if I had to, as in Dean's case. :shrugs:
 
When I first started keeping corn snakes, I fed live. That was just the accepted way to do it and f/t mice weren't readily available. I even raised my own mice for awhile until I couldn't stand the smell. I didn't enjoy seeing the mouse die, but was able to justify it as necessary to keep my snakes alive.

I'm a science teacher and I keep my snakes in my classroom. One of my problems with live feed (in addition to possible snake injury) was the attitude of some of the students who chose to watch them eat. Some got a kind of perverse pleasure in watching the animal die. It brought out a savage/ unfeeling attitude in them that I didn't like.

I was glad when I finally found out that corn snakes readily take f/t and that I could get them a short distance from my home. It was even better when I discovered I could order them online.

Now the kids like watching the mechanics of how the snake is able to eat instead of having a blood thirsty attitude about a mouse's death.
 
There were a couple of points I made in a PM that I figured I make here as well.

I'm not really a live-feeding advocate, and I don't encourage it. I have 100+ snakes at the moment, and only one demands live, and only one gets live. I wouldn't let a live mouse near my lav-bloods or even my no-het normals unless they wouldn't accept even a freshly pre-killed mouse. My preference for f/t is more of a matter of convenience and economy for me than fear of injury to a snake. However, risk should be minimized or eliminated where possible, so why not feed f/t if the snake accepts it?

But I also think it's important for potential snake owners to realize that the f/t vs. live thing is not always their choice. I sure wish that baby rosy boa of mine would take f/t, but she has chosen to only accept live. I didn't have any say in the matter. The o.p. seems to think that it would be good if we all campaigned to inform the public that you don't have to feed your snake live food. But sometimes you do. A huge percentage of new snake owners buy neonates. At what age is a snake most likely to demand live food? As a hatchling. Many (if not most) pet stores and many, many breeders start hatchlings on live pinks. So now you have a bunch of brand-new snake owners whose hatchlings refuse f/t, and who never wanted to deal with live food at all, and who were told they would never have to. This doesn't seem right to me.

attackturtle said:
I really hope this is true and that it becomes almost unheard of to feed a snake a live mouse.
Click to expand...
This will never happen because as I said, this isn't always the keeper's choice.

And I hate to bring up my own favorite crusade topic, but I'd love to see the statistics on snake deaths due to live-feeding versus deaths due to escape. I'll bet that for every corn snake that receives a serious injury from live prey (not even death), there are 1,000 that die due to lack of diligence in enclosure security. You think a domestic mouse is dangerous to a corn snake? Try cats, dogs, raccoons, dehydration, and the lady next door with the rake in her hand.
 
good post Dean

I think most of us who read your post understood that you were simply pointing out the obvious..... there are instances where there is no choice.
You are right, at times there just isn't an option if you want your snake to live. But once that snake had a couple of months of regular feedings I would start working on it to get it onto f/t

Back in the 70's and 80's I fed everything live. Had never heard of frozen thawed. Never had a problem or an injured snake.
I did have two black rat snakes that tried to eat the same mouse once. Yeah I fed in the same enclosure in which I co-habitated my snakes. who knew :shrugs:
It took me about an hour to pry one rat snake head out of the mouth of the other.
I learned about the dangers of co-habitation at the time but it was some years later for me to learn about f/t.
I agree 100% that there are more deaths due to escape then mouse or rat attacks. But, at least everyone does agree that you need to make sure your enclosures are escape proof. We all agree that it is a risk which needs to be addressed... It is a risk. Having a snake escape sucks.
That goes right back to the original topic..live feeding.... It is a risk
As with co-habitation and escape proofing your snake's enclosure, it is a risk that needs to be addressed.
Obviously snakes aren't killed or maimed in large numbers but if that very small percentage happens to be your own snake...well damn that will suck.

Lighting only strikes a very small percentage of people but you still don't stand next to that metal flag pole in a storm now do you?...LOL
And just think about the poor guy that gets struck...he doesn't care about the statistics...he just wants to make sure it doesn't happen again.

So, we all know live is the only option at times but where possible why not aleviate the risk?
We are people, we have a long history of doing what we want but it doesn't hurt to educate us.
I know we agree, Dean, this is not an argument towards your post it is just me rambling as usual.
 
I 100% agree you will probably never be able to separate snakes from live feeding. I am also sure many more snakes die due to owner carelessness then due because of a stray bite.


I just feel like when you talk to somebody who has no knowledge of snakes, and you tell them you f/t feed, they often didnt know you could do that. It may be widely practiced but its not well know. I think part of the reason its not is that most people arent familiar with them. One reason as we all know is that a lot of people are just afraid of snakes but I think the 2nd biggest reason is that people assume that snakes eat live food. What 2nd option. I think thats the first concern any parent has when their child wants a snake. Whos going to feed it and what kind of experiance is that going to be every week. I associate this ignorance partly with this need to feed live when it may not be necessary. Even when people learn of F/t food, they often really have to be sold on thee pros and cons of it before switch over. They are often worried about muscle tone or that their snake will loose it's ability to kill and/or constrict. I think these 2 arguments are for the most part worthless.

I would argue that the only time the better exercise reason for live feeding is a good reason to live feed would only be for breeding females. I read here that this could aid in egg bound females? Otherwise, I feel they are captive animals and if that means they are not as strong as those eating live, wild or not, then thats a consequence of captivity.
 
Attackturtle, I think you are right. Virtually EVERY non-reptile person I talk to have never heard of frozen/thawed food.
They look at me like,"Ok, this frumpy middle aged woman LOOKS normal, but she keeps WHATTTTT? And she feeds them WHATTTT?"
I think more pet shops should promote it as at least an alternative to live. I have my suspicions that pet shops would rather sell live, at a higher price, and get more foot-traffic through their doors every week.

Either that or way too many herpers are stuck in the 70s!
 
Hey Frumpy..

sorry couldn't resist..You know I'm just kidding

You are right in that pet stores will do as much as possible to get the foot traffic in their stores. It's not the choice of animals that keep the pet stores going it's the supplies. Sell a snake for thirty dollars, then a thrirty dollar enclosure, thrirty dollar heat pad, ten or fifteen dollars for hides water bowls and substrate, possibly lights depending on the setup and then the continued cost of feeders,
Every time they can get you in the store, for any reason, there is a good chance something else may catch your eye. A new collar for your cat, a funny halloween outfit for your dog, a hammock for your ferret, a nice ramp for your red-ear slider..etc etc etc.
The supplies and secondary sales are where the money is.
some stores do sell frozen but they don't really promote them and they charge almost as much, or more, then live to make up for it.
 
Yup yup, that's exactly it!

And since pet shops don't promote frozen/thawed food, and most novice herpers get their advice from pet shops....

Well at least we have worked out the whys now.

(and draybar, frumpy is as frumpy does!) :)
 
I think it is to each his own, if I could get live I would feed blackjack live here and their,and frozen all other times just because it is so easy and fast.I had a rat snake before my corns I have now and I didn't know about frozen,but I never had a problem with live, plus I liked watching it do its thing, it was just so cool looking.The corns that I have are feed frozen not live but like I said I would feed live if I could,I mean all you have to do is thump it on its head if you are scared to let it go as is. :crazy02: But that is just my 2 cents :shrugs:
 
I'll add that two of mine don't seem to know the difference. They're the hobos I picked up, don't know if they were ever fed live, but they do find on f/t. In fact they get MORE of a work out with the f/t, I use the salad tongs and 'dance' the mouse around them. They'll strike and I'll jump it out of the way, ahhhhh it's a crafty mouse! You'll have to work harder than that! me: *dances mouse around some more* snakes: *run after it* *strike* *miss* (haha) *strike COIL COIL COIL* and then 3 minutes or later they'll start eating. Got to make SURE it's dead.

And then their's FinFang the dainty boy, never ate live in his life and gets scared if the mouse so much as wobbles. FinFang is also the most outgoing and least scared, so he gets more exercise bootin' around when I have him out. Weird.
 
v_various said:
I'll add that two of mine don't seem to know the difference. They're the hobos I picked up, don't know if they were ever fed live, but they do find on f/t. In fact they get MORE of a work out with the f/t, I use the salad tongs and 'dance' the mouse around them. They'll strike and I'll jump it out of the way, ahhhhh it's a crafty mouse! You'll have to work harder than that! me: *dances mouse around some more* snakes: *run after it* *strike* *miss* (haha) *strike COIL COIL COIL* and then 3 minutes or later they'll start eating. Got to make SURE it's dead.

And then their's FinFang the dainty boy, never ate live in his life and gets scared if the mouse so much as wobbles. FinFang is also the most outgoing and least scared, so he gets more exercise bootin' around when I have him out. Weird.
Click to expand...

Never thought of that, that is pretty cool duck and dodge little mouse.
 
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