Community Profile

1. No evangelizing against live feeding.
2. No inlining / embedding / img src'ing gory images or videos.
3. No linking to gory images or videos without warning (with warning is allowed).

---

We raise and breed ball pythons. We feel that responsible feeding of live rodents to captive snakes is safe, sometimes even required. The keyword is 'responsible', you must use caution and never leave a live rodent in with a snake unsupervised. Rodents may bite your snake and cause serious damage if you do not monitor the entire feeding process. We use both live and fresh killed. Feeding live is merely a matter of opinion or preference, neither is better than the other as long as you do either responsibly. There are times when you will have a stubborn eater and live is required. There are also times when a snake has been raised on fresh killed or frozen thawed, and this snake may only take what it is used to. In the end, there is nothing wrong with feeding live rodents as long as you are a responsible snake owner.

We also raise & breed tegu lizards. We do not recommend feeding live rodents to tegu lizards. Tegus are very smart and quickly learn that they must chase live prey. Encouraging this will raise their feeding response and may lead to accidental bites. By feeding tegus fresh killed or frozen/thawed rodents, it lowers their feeding response. They will learn that they have time to examine and determine if a 'moving item' is food or not before they grab it.

Rick Sisco
SiscoReptiles.com
2008-03-13

---

After many years of keeping reptiles, I've found that the best way to establish and maintain a good feeding response with snakes is with the use of live prey. I raise my own feeders, so feeding live is also more convenient for me. Rodents have a very high metabolic rate, as well as high protein requirements. A rodent left with a snake for an extended period will fulfill its protein needs by chewing on the snake. Because of this, I only feed as many snakes as I can supervise at any given time. Once I hear that a rodent has been taken, I do a visual check to ensure that it's being constricted. If a snake doesn't show interest or if it has been more than a few minutes, I remove the rodent and offer it to another snake, or put it back into the feeder colony for breeding or feeding off later. After roughly 2 decades of feeding live prey to snakes, I have yet to run into any problems. (Emphases added.)

Joshua Easter
captivebredsnakes.com
2008-03-13

---

A casually stalking Chihuahua Mountain Kingsnake is bitten by mouse and responds. "[The mouse] bite didn't leave so much as an imprint on the scales [of the snake]." Courtesy Joshua Easter: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8433322923818575295

---

Another healthy feeding response to a live mouse, from an Irian Jaya Carpet Python, again courtesy Joshua Easter: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5747522830708932844

---

For contrast, a "healthy snake feeding response" to a dead mouse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibF-msmkHsw

---

We created this community to offer understanding and support for our fellow pet keepers who choose to feed live prey to their animals. We use successful, professional keepers and breeders of snakes as our role models in demonstrating that this is a practice that is not as disaster-prone as many would choose to believe. We do it because a consistent, aggressive feeding response is important to the health and long-term care of our beloved reptiles.

To name some of the most widely recognized live-feeders:

• Adam Wysocki (8ball pythons)
• Kevin McCurley (NERD)
• Brian Barczyk (BHB)
• Greg Grazani (Grazani Reptiles)
• Mike Wilbanks (constrictors unlimited)
• Neil (big gunns), who doesn't have a named enterprise but keeps/produces/sells hundreds of snakes
• David and Tracy Barker (highly regarded breeders and authors of Pythons of the World Vol. 1 and 2, a work often referenced by vets)

A hypothesis based on observations of human behavior on herp forums:

The anti-live mentality is a thing that tends to be experienced by newcomers to herpetoculture and herp-based hobbies, probably as a result of the fanaticism that is displayed in the more common google-hits for "ball python care". It's a fear- based by-product of the pet industry. If you get seriously in to these animals and make it a major part of your life to care for them, you come to learn that they're very capable of holding their own. This does not relieve the keeper of responsibility when feeding live, but intensifies it - you are not only responsible for the health and well-being of your snake, but also for the rodent until it is safely being digested, Let the record show that we believe a well-treated, well-fed animal of manageable size is not likely to cause injury to your pet.

Some specific examples of liberal live-feeding methods employed by professionals:

Brian, owner of BHB and producer of SnakebytesTV, has admitted publicly that he leaves well-fed small rodents in with his snakes overnight and doesn't have serious issues. He loves his snakes and makes a life out of caring for them. It's not an issue of negligence. Brian is a highly experienced professional, however, and so we do not advocate unattended live feedings as a rule.

VPI's caresheet states that if you feed live and leave the rodent in the cage with the snake, it is important to also leave some rodent food to prevent a hungry rodent from reversing the food chain. This suggests that they also believe a well-fed feeder animal is not generally a danger to your pet, but again, *we* still highly recommend supervision when feeding live.

maru_mari, moderator
2008-03-13

---

Interests (20):

Maintainers (1):

Moderators (2):

Members (12):