The reason you see conflicting advice is that there are no hard and fast rules on keeping snakes. Much of it is based on personal experience, the animal itself and opinion.
I prefer to feed my snakes, especially young ones in tubs and it has nothing to do with feeding response.
First even feeding on a plate the snake can and most often will drag it's food off of the plate and into the bedding. The possibility of it ingesting bedding along with the food can pose problems. I'm not so much concerned with impaction but more concerned that a sharp, splintery piece of bedding could pierce the digestive tract.
Second the minimal handling to get your snake from habitat to tub then it finding food is a simple form of positive reinforcement that this handling leads to good things, food and not bad things. Those big pink things are not going to eat me. I believe in time the snake makes this association and become more used to being handled developing confidence and trust between keeper and kept.
Handling baby snakes could be stressful to the snake. They may be a top predator but are not apex predators. In other words they can be food for larger animals. Their fear of being grabbed is an instinctual reaction hence the squirming and often nipping and striking trying to defend itself. Babies will quite often spend a great deal of time in their hides, a place of security. If regularly pulled from their hide and handled this displaces that sense of security. If your baby is out and about you could pick it up and handle it gently from time to time. Try cupping it in your hands providing a safe dark environment for a few minutes then put it back. Twice a day for 15 minutes may be too much IMHO.
A 10 gallon should be fine for a baby Cali. Provide plenty of tight fitting hides, warm end, cool end and moist hides for shedding. Deep bedding to burrow in, a water bowl and your little guy should do fine. Some prefer to keep babies on paper towel but it has been my experience that even with good hides the snakes end up hiding under the PT looking for added security. Deep bedding also makes clean up a lot easier and provides added interest for the snake rather than the starker more spartan setups. Again my opinion and experience.
I can't say definitively about the vibrations from your bf's bass. I have my snakes in my bedroom/office/snake room with a home theartre with surround sound. The vibration and noise from my SS system doesn't seem to bother my snakes at all. I suggest setting up your snake, let your bf have at it and watch the baby. If while playing it gets frantic and acts like it's trying to get out then maybe you'll have to come up with something. Most likely it won't bother it at all as long as it feels secure in it's enclosure.
Feeding stunned or fresh killed, F/K to an adult is fine. Most of us try to get our snakes on frozen thawed, F/T as young as possible. Buying live rodents can be more expensive than buying F/T and is much less convenient especially when feeding a lot of animals. Another feeding tip is getting them from mice to rats as young as possible. Adult sized mice for and adult king with a healthy appetite is more expensive than feeding a similarly sized rat. It takes longer and more food to produce an adult mouse than it does to raise a weanling rat of similar size. Less time, work and food to produce equals less expensive to purchase.
The use of feed tubs aids in switching over to F/T or mice to rats as with time your snake knows why it's in the tub and starts looking for food right away.
Your flatmates dogs should not present a problem. My wife has almost as many dogs as I have snakes. Well I exaggerate but she has lots more dogs than I want. LOL I would imagine you will set you habitat up high enough that the dogs won't be able to hover over your baby all the time. While handling the dogs may get curious and stick their noses in the snakes face. The snake may get defensive and strike the nose and the dogs will begin to think twice about doing that again. LOL My wife's dogs are usually the ones that find my escapees for me.
Again these are based on my opinions and experiences. I'm sure the others will add their own and you can go from there.
Hope this helps,
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BigT
There is a difference between ignorance and stupidity. The ignorant can be taught, stupidity is beyond our control.
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