Reptile & Amphibian Forums

if a new born snake is feeding on thawd mice.. is it possible to change over to feeding live. meaning will they switch over to eating live mice.

if its possible... how can someone do this?

thanks
steve

It could certainly be done by offering it live...but I don't know why you would want to switch from frozen to live.

Chris

Yes, it should be easy to convert to live. I would suggest you weigh the benefits of staying with f/t vs. live before you decide to change.

There as many more reasons why f/t is better than live.

i understand. its not for me.. my friend asked me the querstion today and i wasnt sure of the answer so i figured people here would know. what are the benefits to feed frozen than live besides the safety benefits.

unfortunatley i feed my female brb live. but she doesnt seem to want to eat once a week and she about 2 ft long. is it normal if she doesnt eat once every week

There are two sides to the argument,

I feed mine live. The feedings are well supervised and regulated. It is my own personal judgement call considering many factors.

The main negative about feeding live is the possibility of injury to the snake from its prey. It happens and can badly scar or kill your snake.

How old is your BRB?? Mine will eat any chance it gets. Yours should be eating at least a hopper/young mouse every 5-7 days.
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-Iman
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Imans House of Herps

Well, I'm not too educated on this because I feed fresh killed. I am in the process of the coversion to f/t. After the last fecal I did that had lots of pinworm ova, I am slowly changing my tune. So far only the starving female that had babies ate a f/t on Sunday night. One by one they will be switched, and all the babies will have no choice either.

Frozen is cheaper, unable to cause injury, and parasite free.
You should never have one of those annoying hoppers hop right out of the sack and scurry under something (unless you're very, very clumsy). If you're feeding f/t and your snake goes off feed you can always step up to f/k or live, but it doesn't work the other way.

If you feed live you have to constatntly go to the store. I've seen some of those pics of rat eaten snakes, but I think that can by avoided by management. The live has an opportunity to sink it's teeth into the snake if it's not constricted in the middle. And of course....parasites.