Reptile & Amphibian Forums

...I usually feed baby Brazilian Rainbows live small mice for their first meals. They seem to like live hopper and weaned mice. They will also often take a live pinky or fuzzy rat for their first meals. They do eat small live rodents or lizards for their first meals in the wild. It is not likely that they would come upon many dead rodents as the rodents would decompose quickly in warm humid climes. I do know that many people want a snake that has already been started on prekilled prey. So.....this year I tried frozen and thawed small mice on all my august babies. After numerous attempts and quite a bit of time spent carefully presenting warm dead mice on tongs as of this morning I still had 14 that had not eaten. I got some live hopper mice today and offered them to the august babies that had not eaten. By noon all 14 of them had eaten. I have 8 babies that were born monday and I decided to go ahead and feed them live hopper mice. 7 of the 8 ate them.
....Conventional herpdom wisdom is that snakes should be fed dead prey. When I was at the Daytona Expo this year I talked to a bunch of breeders. During these discussions I discovered that many other breeders (of all sorts of different species) are still raising their own rodents and feeding live to their newborn babies. It seems to me that getting those first meals into a baby snake are important and that perhaps more of us should consider that rather than the newer thinking about not feeding live prey. I have had over 1000 baby Brazilian Rainbow Boas and have never had one that would not eventually eat and nearly all of them would easily switch later to pre-killed prey.
Jeff

I have fed all my babies live without any problems thus far with the exception of pinworm ova in fecals samples when they were checked. I understand that pinworms are for the most part a non-pathogenic occurrence in snakes. Their direct life cycle is interrupted by ingestion by the snake and cause no reason for concern. Personally, I would prefer to feed fresh kill to all of mine with the exception of the babies. There are several reasons why I now choose to feed frozen/thawed. The first reason is that it slightly sickens me to kill the large rats. The next is the cost....I fed juvies and sub-adults yesterday and it cost me $64. If I had went with f/t it would probably closer to $20. This adds up in a month. The third is convenience. It is so much easier for me to feed in groups....west wall, north wall, neos, etc. I like to always have what I need and use just that many. The problem with this is that I can never buy quantities of frozen where I don't run out of one size before the other.

It takes longer for live feedings in a house with 10 cats and 2 dogs. Since I feed always in a separate container, I must watch very carefully for injuries to snakes and from snakes to my dear little kitties who love to be in the middle of the event. A snake room would end most of my troubles......

Linda

Put them up in a seperate room. Bet you thought I was gonna say something cruel?
Jeff

>>I have fed all my babies live without any problems thus far with the exception of pinworm ova in fecals samples when they were checked. I understand that pinworms are for the most part a non-pathogenic occurrence in snakes. Their direct life cycle is interrupted by ingestion by the snake and cause no reason for concern. Personally, I would prefer to feed fresh kill to all of mine with the exception of the babies. There are several reasons why I now choose to feed frozen/thawed. The first reason is that it slightly sickens me to kill the large rats. The next is the cost....I fed juvies and sub-adults yesterday and it cost me $64. If I had went with f/t it would probably closer to $20. This adds up in a month. The third is convenience. It is so much easier for me to feed in groups....west wall, north wall, neos, etc. I like to always have what I need and use just that many. The problem with this is that I can never buy quantities of frozen where I don't run out of one size before the other.
>>
>>It takes longer for live feedings in a house with 10 cats and 2 dogs. Since I feed always in a separate container, I must watch very carefully for injuries to snakes and from snakes to my dear little kitties who love to be in the middle of the event. A snake room would end most of my troubles......
>>
>>Linda

Although I just had my first litter of BRBs this year, I never even thought of F/T, I have all but on occaision fed live.
I prefer it for one because the snakes seem to be more tame and much less nippy than snakes that have been raised or even fed for a period of time on F/T. For example, last year about this time I bought my adult male BRB who had been fed F/T for many years by his previous owner. Although the owner held the snake often he said he always had trouble with the snake after feeding, he did take the snake from the cage and put it into a feeding tub, but would have troubel not being bitten putting it back.
Another reason is that I think the snakes like the chase, although for some of my snakes I need to knock out the rat/mouse, the rodent is still able to have some reflexes and this keeps the snake more active, in my experience, looking for prey when theyre hungry, but not after my hand, I have never had THAT problem except with other peoples' snakes.
Third, it is actaully more cost effective for me to breed and raise my own feeder rats and mice. I spend about 2 hours a week cleaning and maintaining my colony of Several Dozen mice and a little over a dozen rats (all of which does not include babies which number a lot more than I could count in one sitting). I spend about $30 every three months at the feed store on a large bag of pine shavings and hamster food (56 cents a lb). For many this may not be an option due to the time needed caring for the animals, but I have been breeding and raising my own snake food for approximately 10 years (keep in mind that I was able to do it as a kid, but I also had only a couple snakes at that time, spare mice I would sell to the local petstore as pets for a quarter each) I would recommend it as a good job for kids to do, easy and uncomplicated and something very hard to mess up on.
As far as feeding the neonates the live prey, I had no problems with the mice attacking the snake, in fact I never have had that happen at all. I think some who feed live to snakes and not pay attention while they are feeding neglect to make sure that the snake is interested in the live prey.
A good thing to keep in mind is that when rodents are bored they nibble, when snakes are uninterested in live prey it is a good sign that they just dont want to eat. Because of horror stories of owners leaving live prey in with snakes and having the snakefood eat the snake, I only keep the live prey in for a max of 15 minutes, if the snake hasnt eaten by that point, I try again another day. This way the rodent doesnt start nibbling on my snake.
There is only one snake that I leave alone with live prey for a longer period of time and that is my reluctant eater, Riley born in my first litter in June, she needs the food to move around and has yet to get very quick at eating, I check on her every 5 minutes and usually within an hour she has killed the mouse.
I have also switched snakes from eating only F/T to live, as my male BRB was only fed that. It took a couple months but it was worth it to me, his attitude has changed dramatically, from me not being able to handle him often to him sitting calming on my bed while I do homework. I first fed him F/T and after I got sick of that I knocked out his prey and then gave him fully functional prey.
to me the only way to go is live.

-----
Jess
1.1 adult brazilian rainbows
1.2 baby BRBs born 6/18
1.0 normal corn
1.0 african brown house snake
0.1 hypo Boa constrictor
0.1 normal ball python
1.1 crested geckos
1.1 western hognoses
0.0.1 unhatched crested gecko egg
Oodles of mice and rats
1.1.2 teddy bear hamsters
0.1 paranoid parents "too many snakes snakes!"