I fed FT for the first time tonight and it was a very exciting experience. How can feeding frozen thawed rats to ball pythons be exciting? Well when I started I believed that the snakes would be attracted to the heat of the rats after they were thawed and then placed in hot water from the tap but apparently movement plays a larger role in the feeding response of a BP that’s use to eating live and this is where the excitement comes in. The first couple of snakes took the rats with no problem but only half of them swallowed them the ones that didn’t swallow just constricted then released and continued to wait for more food. The other half o my collection decided that my hand made a better meal than a lifeless rat. They came out of the tubs and struck at me like the cobras you see on animal planet. Not once or twice but repeatedly and non stop. I had to beat them back with news paper back into the tub. I know a BP can’t kill me but I have a couple of 4,000g beast that scared me enough to scream like a girl loud enough that my girlfriend asked if I was ok. I couldn’t answer her rite away because I was pinned back against the door of my snake closet by a 5300g female snapping in my face while I struck it with news paper repeatedly. I literally had to grab her by the throat and wrestle her back into the tub as she tried to wrap around the side and bite my hand. It was at that very moment that I thought to myself what many of us keepers think at different times in our lives as reptile keepers when the animals we love exhibit "natural" reptile behavior, "what the hell am I doing?” By the time I had calmed down and was able to respond to my girlfriends offer for help she had already established a line of communication with 911. I got to her right as she was explaining that I was being eating by a "ball python". I then took the phone from her and explained to the operator that I was feeding my pet snake and had decided to play a joke on her so it was no need for an officer to come. I apologized for the call and then hung up. Awesome!!! I cant wait to do it the second time but I think I will buy myself some very long, I mean really long like, 3 foot long tongs.

The end

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