tessigal;563413; said:
Always feed prekilled. More than a few snakes have lost their lives because a rat defended itself. Feeding live also keeps feeding aggression high, making it much more likely that you will receive a feeding strike. I got one of those once. Not fun to stand there for 5 minutes while two men remove a snake from your arm. this may be something you want to remember if you are still working for that herp vet. If you know a snake eats only live expecting aggression from it can help you.
That's a myth. The snake in question here probably got torn up by the rat because the owner did not monitor the situation and realize that the snake was not interested in eating. Another factor is the quality of feeders- dehydrated, malnourished, or sick rats are incredibly aggressive. Fat, healthy, happy feeder rats just mull around and usually don't even see it coming or put up much of a fight when they are constricted by the snake.
By the original post, we really don't have enough information to make any judgements. I feed a small group of ball pythons live prey each week and have never had any problems with bites ever. The largest size rat I feed is a "small" rat...even to the big breeder girls. They simply don't need to eat anything bigger. The snake here could have been offered a prey item that was much too big, and caused the snake not to recognize it as prey.
In regard to "feeding live will keep feeding aggression high," thats just not true at all. I have seen ball pythons that eat thawed prey items have just as strong of a feeding response as those who eat live. Use common sense...snakes are using their smell and sense of heat to track down prey. If you make a SFE (Stupid Feeding Error), its not the snake's fault- it's yours.
I don't mean to start a live vs. prekilled debate, but I will say this: feeding live prey to properly conditioned snakes can be just as safe as other methods. A lot of newbies tend to do things like switch around from f/t to live to p/k, feed their snakes outside of their enclosures, etc. That's when poo hits the fan and then these same newbies jump on an online forum and profess that feeding live is bad based upon their own limited experience. I assure you, no professional reptile keepers, breeders, or zoos do any of these newbie practices. There's a reason for that.
