Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all:

I am not an expert in herps, but I do try new things and such. I just found a new way that I can elicit feeding response in pitted snakes (like the pit vipers and ball pythons) who use heat as a way to find food.

I was frustrated with my ball pythons who would only eat live food. Everytime I want to feed f/t food, I have to give them a live food first and then place the f/t in the snake's mouth as the butt of the first prey is swallowed.

The other day I was taking out a dead food out of my BP's cage. She bit my middle finger knuckle. I realized that she smelled the food but was looking for something warm (like my knuckle) to bite on. So I started to heat up f/t food. Now she strikes at dead food! Turns out that the reason I had always needed to feed live food was that: live food is warm! So, she wasn't necessarily looking for live food--just warm food.

An easy way of heating up food is with hot water. However, this is only recommended if you have newspaper as substrate. Aspen will be too stuck onto wet food! (I learned to be very careful because MsTT warned about aspen..By the way, MsTT how have you been? You haven't posted in long time).

I now have all my snakes on Newspaper. My copperhead and my ballpython will strike at warmed wet f/t food. (The Pigmy rattle snake that I have will strike even cold food, thankfully).

Think about it: They are, after all, pit animals that use heat. It makes perfect sense that heated food will be better taken than cold food. I wonder why I didn't think of it sooner. It would've saved me a lot of frustration. I guess I am sharing this info, hoping that I can maybe save some frustration out there in the BP and in the Pit-viper community.

cheers.
http://www.dotphoto.com/go.asp?l=longtang&AID=830686

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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.

If you didn't want to worry about the food being wet you should put it in a ziploc bag and soak it in the hot water for about 15-20 minutes. Then it will be dry and warm.

I do not mean to burst your bubble at your ingenious new way to feed frozen, but how were you doing it before you had this brainstorm? I have always taken the frozen item out of the freezer, put it for a day or two in the refridgerator, and then filled up a small tupperware box with hot water in my sink, and soaked the prey item in there until warm. How else would you do it?

Dave

What I do is take whatever I need out of the freezer, put them in a container and leave them on the top of one of my racks for atleast 8 hours. The temp in my room is 85 or so, if the rat isn't warm enough I hold the rat over my heater for a few seconds. That gets them going.

>>I do not mean to burst your bubble at your ingenious new way to feed frozen, but how were you doing it before you had this brainstorm? I have always taken the frozen item out of the freezer, put it for a day or two in the refridgerator, and then filled up a small tupperware box with hot water in my sink, and soaked the prey item in there until warm. How else would you do it?
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>>Dave

Ah. Yes... thankyou for bringing it to my attention that I need to clarify:

You are correct. It really isn't a huge difference in the way of doing things. However, there is this subtle point: in the past, after the food was thawed, I didn't really worry about keeping it warm. Now what I do is go from hot water directly to snake. If at any point, the food becomes room temp, I put it back in the water and swirl it around. The hot water acts as something the pit vipers or pythons can home in on.

Sorry, I wasn't very clear in my first post. It is a minor, but pertinent difference. And it was a tweak that I have found to make a difference in whether the snakes strike or not. I guess you could call it fine-tuning.

cheers.
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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.

yea.............we use hot water all the time........

then we pat them dry in a towel.........(I do anyways)..........

if they need the heat.......I just hold the mouse /rat in front of the ceramic heater for a few seconds to really heat the surface up........sometimes...wham....as you said..........

good luck.....have fun........

(learning is fun and easy........remembering is where people screw up..........)

and I will never know everything.........always learn new stuff ......and snakes always make an ass or a lier out of us......and change the rules........LOL

JYReptiles.....

>>and I will never know everything.........always learn new stuff ......and snakes always make an ass or a lier out of us......and change the rules........LOL
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>>JYReptiles.....

Man, that is so true that snakes will make a liar out of you . That is why I try to stack the deck as much in my favor as possible. Sometimes in addition to heating, I do braining.

I have one ball python that I am still trying to figure out. He is not the greatest eater. For him, I heat up live mice (warm them up), and I scent with gerbils. And he still frustrates me more often than not.

Like you said, it is lots of fun to learn.

I still read lots of feeding posts in the hopes of picking up subtle things that I can use to stack my deck.

cheers.
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Longtang. I like snakes and rats.

After I thaw the prey item, I stick it's head under the heat lamp for just a few seconds. This warms it up. I have a couple of snakes that I feed from black leather gloves. If I put the glove in the freezer for a minute, and warm up the rat's head, they don't reach around the rat for my glove.
I did have a snake stike at my coffee cup once......

GratefulFred
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GratefulFred

[quote]I did have a snake stike at my coffee cup once...[quote]

Lol, mine strikes at lit lighters, and cigs.