OK – it sounds like you’ve at least tried F/T.
That being said, the important thing, when taking advice on these forums, is to understand when all these guys react to something, they’re reacting to a thousand and one posts about snakes getting injured from live prey…unfortunately, at the moment, that’s all falling down on you.
Let’s say then, that your not “lazy” about this (there are, however, plenty of keepers who are) and that you just haven’t had a method to switch the snakes over.
I used to feed live, when I was young. As many arguments as I could have constructed then, on why I did this…if I’m honest now…it was for me (getting to see predator and prey stuff in my own room) and not the snake.
Sure, there can be arguments as to allowing these predators to hunt, for enrichment’s sake…but the possibility of injury outweighs this vague benefit. They are not really hunting. An animal is dropped, suddenly, into their small, captive world. And they are not always in the mood to hunt (these are the times that injuries can happen).
So we’ve already covered F/T as being less money and more convenient – so we’ll consider that covered. One advantage is you don’t have to watch the cage, like a hawk…you HAVE to every time you feed live…when my Fox Snake (mentioned in an above post) was bitten, I got in there right away, and he suffered no major damage (but he would have).
As far as getting your BPs to take interest, there are various methods (some people here can probably mention some better ones). But there’s no need to get your arm bitten. Many reptile supply stores offer long forceps/tongs (there is a thread above, in fact, about that). Get some good tongues and try animating some mice/rats for your snakes. Rub them up in their faces if that doesn’t work (sometimes a snake getting cranky will bite the mouse and the feeding response then takes over). BPs have heat sensors…so it might be good to have recently killed – or to thaw your mice in warm water.
I use tongs for my Eastern Indigo. She’ll eat antying (live, dead, even thawed catfish fillets)…but I offer food to her with tongs, because it gives her a chance to do a little “hunting” and, I hope, a little stimulation. I also do this because I like to know what food items are eaten (one time an uneaten mouse got pushed into her hide with the under-tank heat and I didn’t find out until the smell announced it a few days later…ugh!).
As to the smell of a frozen mouse’s insides…I can attest to how bad that is as well. The mentioned Indigo is a very enthusiastic eater and her species have strong jaws and she’s ruptured more than one thawed mouse…bad smell. My advice would be to just…not cut open the thawed mousse gut.
Good luck!
