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i started prekilling my rats today for my small collection of bp's using the co2 method. its clean and fast. i droped in my three rats for my bp's that weigh about 750-800 gram bp's and so far 1 took the food and the funny thing is the one that took it is my newest one that didnt eat since i got him several weeks ago. my others have been pretty good eaters.my question is i put them in around 11:00 this morning and want to leave them in till tommorow around the same time. is this a good way of doing it or should i have done it a little differntly? anyone can tell me about there experiences with feeding like this. thanks all.

sometimes you have to wiggle prekilled food
i use tongs
u know it gives them the "hey it's alive feeling"

Joe

i was told not to feed directly after you c02 a rat. something about the c02 not being good for your snake. I mean the rat just inhailed c02 and now its in your snakes stomach. I dunno how safe it is but i was told so wait about 24hours after you c02.
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Dave

www.DNReptiles.com
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CO2 is a naturally occuring element (in our air of course) and it doesn't have any ill effects in the quantity your talking about in a rats lungs. The snakes have more CO2 in their lungs that they exhale when the hiss than a rat would have so I wouldn't be to worried about not feeding it for several hours. I feed straight from the "gas chamber" to the snake box and have for years. I believe whomever told you that may have been thinking of a more substantial quantity of CO2 (which of course would not be smart or practical - they would suffocate their snake). I wouldn't worry about it at all. Very safe and clean method of feeding for your reptiles. Not blasting by any means, just wanting to correct a misconception.
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2.1 RTB (Zander, Ridick, Liliana)
1.1 Burms (Vladamir, Natalia)
0.1 Lavender Albino Retic (Katerina)
1.1 100% Het Tigers (Nicholi & Charlamaine)
2.3 Silver fox rabbits
many, many, many, many rats
"So, just how big a boy are ya???!!"

To add to that, since most snakes (most of mine, anyway) constrict even pre-killed prey, most of the CO2 would be expelled from the rat's lungs during constriction.

And, not sure about this one, but it makes sense to me that since live prey is suffocated through constriction, wouldn't the CO2 levels be elevated in the blood when the rat dies?

Steve

Any pre killed or frozen thawed I feed I always use tongs and just move it a bit. seems to work great on all but a few of mine.

I feed frozen/thawed. What i do is defrost in the fridge overnight, let them out for an hour or two to get to room temp. Then i put the rats in their sealed bags into a sink full of hot water to warm them up 2-10 minutes depending or size of rat. My ball likes them warmer than room temp.

Put the snake in feeding container and using long tongs put the rat about six inches from the snakes head and drop it a few inches (3-4) to the floor of the container and the snake will take it right away 95% of the time when it hits the floor of the feeding container. I tried holding it or waving it on the tongs but would scare the snake and discovered the drop method by accident and it works so i kept doing it.

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0.0.1 03 Normal Corn Snake - Kula
0.0.1 05 CB Normal Ball Python - Smeagol

1.0 Boston Terrier - Blaze
0.1 Long Coat Chihuahua/ Papillion Mix - Taz