Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Bet that got your attention. But really I fed my corns live adult mice today for the first time in 2 years since they were hatchlings on pinkies. I figured it would add a little excitement to their lives. I had hoped they would show interest in live prey. Man was that an understatement! Both my 02 okeetee male and my 02 amel female hit the mice with furious, lightning fast strikes, coiled around the mice in the same motion and then constricted and swallowed. It was so cool! Neither one had ever constricted or coiled around their food in the past. guess millions of years of evolution and instinct can't be forgotten in a few years of the easy life. My 03 butter didn't react the same way to his live fuzzy. He just ate it like it was a frozen thawed, swallowing it while it was still alive and wiggling. I'll definitely be doing live feedings again in the near future.

bad idea!!! live adult mice can bite the snake on the head and kill it!

I bet that happens all the time in the wild. A poor snake attacked and killed by a field mouse Seriously , I supervised the entire time and would not have left them alone. I would bet that more people than not feed live to their pet snakes without incident. I know you reduce the chances by feeding frozen thawed.

You would be betting wrong if you think the majority of educated keepers feed live over prekilled or frozen thawed. Yes, many keepers still offer live prey as a rule, and many of them do it for the 'show' not for any real benefit to the snake. A few of us have select animals that simply will not eat f/t or p/k prey - there are some snakes that simply refuse to be switched, but they are typically wc specimens or a handful of finicky eaters. If you are familiar at all with wild caught imports, you will know that most come in with scarrs of one sort or another if they have any age at all to them. So yes, it does happen in the wild, fatal or not. No amount of supervision can prevent a bite. The fact of the matter is that it all happens too fast for us humans to interfere until after the fact. It is well documented that rodents can and have maimed or killed pet snakes - especially in instances when the snake chooses not to kill or eat the prey animal.

In the early years of my keeping snakes (I started 13 years ago), I only fed live because there weren't really any other options that I'd heard of at that time. Then one of my boas was bitten. While it wasn't fatal, it did swell and require treatments - daily shots as well as a topical antibiotic cream. For the record, no snake likes getting shots and it's at least a two person job, even for a snake as small as a corn snake (I've also had to administer injections to a 4' grey rat snake I had) much less the obstacle of giving a 6' boa her shots. After that first bite to my boa some eight or nine years ago, I started prekilling my mice and rats because it was unheard of for the average keeper to have access to frozen, shipped prey items...a wonderful advancement for the modern keeper. When frozen prey became available and more widespread, you quickly saw me changing over to it. The convenience of having prey items on hand as well as the health benefits to the snake far outweigh any thrill of watching them kill their own prey.

Raven

Thanks for the advice.

it dosnt matter if there supervised, the prey can bite faster than u think. i bet its ok if you break the mouses jaw.

Jonah, it is your call, but I would warn you that you are taking a risk with live mice. The mouse can bite your snake and kill or hurt it. You can't move fast enough to save it. It could lose an eye or get a nasty bite. I am sure this doesn't happen in the wild very often, but most snakes in the wild don't live as long as pets either.

Another good point to consider are mites. The mice you buy from the store may have mites and transfer them to your snake. Freezing the mouse will kill them and you don't need to worry about a mite infestation.
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0.1 BCI
1.1 Okeetee
2.0 Motley Sunglow, Bloodred
0.2 Motley Sunglow, Ghost

The mites alone are reason enough.

Perhaps, but what about the safety of your snake?
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0.1 BCI
1.1 Okeetee
2.0 Motley Sunglow, Bloodred
0.2 Motley Sunglow, Ghost

I read somewhere (don't remember where) that feeding live every now and again, helps pet snakes get the exercise that they don't get enough of. I personally, don't like feeding live, but I have fed live prey to my corns a couple of times, out of necessity. My ball won't eat anything but live right now, however we're working on that.

1.0 snow
1.1 amel
0.1 motley
0.1 okeetee
0.1 candy cane
0.0.1 ball python

I think it was Kathy Love when describing how egg binding can happen in snakes that are not getting enough exercise.