I rescued this guy for International Reptile Rescue about a week ago. He was in a camper on an impound lot for over 40 days before they realized there was a snake in the tank. The weather was in the 90's and it was over 110 degrees in the camper when I got him. It's a miracle he was alive, let alone in such great condition :)
I’ve been trying to work with this girl a lot to get her more used to handling. She’s responding to tap training pretty well, thankfully. It’s been a couple days since she went into food mode while attempting to pull her out.
Simca continues to look fabulous.
I have zero knowledge about snakes, you said something about one of yours trying to kill you? What is it like, like how do they behave when they're being rough?
I was being a little sarcastic. She wasn't so much "trying to kill me" as she was striking at me several times. She has a bad case of fear aggression and is very hard to handle. She requires a lot of patience and some skill to work with, without getting bitten. She immediately coils her neck into an S shape when disturbed and gets ready to strike at me. I have to handle her with a snake hook, using slow, steady movements. It is a challenge and can be very stressful on both of us. I'm trying to work with her with hopes that she will become more confident and relaxed, but she has gotten worse over the last 8 months if anything.
Please don't feed your snake live food! Most snakes will eat frozen mice, which are much better for them and it's more humane. With live food you run the risk of the mouse or rat fighting back and hurting your snake before it can eat it. Plus, euthanasia via co2 is a much more humane death compared to being hunted and eaten by a snake. Snakes don't need to hunt live food and it isn't more natural for them to do so, as they are pets, not wild animals. It's better for the snake and the rodent.
oh my god its nature. im getting real tired of people telling me what to feed my snakes. i feed Beads (the larger of the two) live mice because he has proved he can hunt and kill effectively. hes a SNAKE. he is designed to hunt for his food. i give lotney (the smaller and disfigured snake) pre-killed because she’s too small and her face doesn’t let her aim very well. so yeah, a little common sense is in order to decide if your snake can eat live mice. if they can’t get the hang of it, sure give them pre killed, but if they CAN? fucking DO IT
if i wanted an animal who peacefully ate grass id get a guinea pig ok?
if your snake is strong and fast enough, give them a live mouse so they can enjoy their one single fucking purpose in life. and obviously give them a mouse appropriate to their size.
(And yes, have a pair of long tweezers with you to break the mouse’s neck if your snake does miss and the mouse tries to bite it. If you can’t handle the circle of life then do yourself a favor and don’t get a reptile.)
I probably wouldn’t bother with this if I hadn’t been tagged, but I’m getting tired of people saying “it’s nature” or even more common “but in the wild”. It’s that same logic that puts beardies and leos on sand to die horrible deaths, because it’s often very uneducated.
In nature countless numbers of snakes are injured and die as a result of their PREY. So using “in nature” to do something that endangers the life of an animal just seems silly to me? Our responsibility as caretakers is to give them the safest most comfortable environment that will increase their quality of life and longevity compared to “nature”.
Feeding live comes with the inherent risk of the animal getting injured by the prey. Mice and rats have nasty sharp teeth. And I’ve seen far too many pictures and snakes in person who are/were the victims of living feeding.
That being said, live feeding can be done more (not completely) safely if the keeper is vigilant. But I don’t recommend feeding live unless you have a VERY picky feeder who refuses nothing else.
If you’re feeding live to an animal that accepts frozen then why are you doing it? You like watching the hunt? You like watching the mouse die and struggle?
Feeding f/t is more humane for the mouse since most procedures involve putting the rodent to sleep in a CO2 chamber or something similar where they lose conciousness, then die. As opposed to being crushed by a muscular meat noodle and pierced by dozens of needle sharp teeth until it final can’t breath or the heart can’t beat.
Honestly though. I dunno why you don’t do f/t for the convenience and price? Where I am live costs tons more. Plus f/t allows you to be prepared and have reserve for your animal.
Lastly, anyone who broadcasts their caretaking online is leaving themselves open to critique and comment. It’s the internet. Don’t want people talking about the repercussions of feeding live? Don’t tell people you’re feeding live. Simple, right? :P
Anyway… Not something I really wanted to get into. But yeahh……
tl;dr feeding f/t is way safer and way more convenient.
The fact that you own a snake in captivity immediately strips away the “it’s nature” logic. It is no longer in nature. Do what’s best for the safety of your animal. I only suggest live feedings for the tremendously picky feeders, as YHS mentioned.
fun fact: I’ve had 3 snakes in my life. 2 of the 3 literally would not eat pre-killed mice. So to keep them alive, we fed them live mice. What does that make us?
I’m honestly confused by your comment? Like Reptilia and me both said that picky feeders exist and sometimes feeding live is a necessity.
But the OP is feeding live for sport. Because they can. Or as they said because their snake “can”. I’m willing to bet that their snake happily accepts f/t. In fact the OP said that one of their other snakes is fed f/t because they “can’t”. And that they’re feeding live because of nature and stuff :P
When you can feed frozen/thawed you should. It’s better for everyone involved. When you can and you choose not to that brings into some ethics questions. Is there some kind of pleasure derived from seeing an animal die? What is a better death? Humane euthanasia or being strangled by a snake because that’s how it’s done “in the wild”.
As a snake keeper sometimes you have choices, and sometimes you don’t. And often those choices are determined by the animal, but other times those choices are ours. If the snake decides that f/t is not a viable source you have to decide if your responsibility when you took it on justifies the pain its prey will experience.
Keeping snakes isn’t easy ethically in my opinion. It’s the purest form of feeding an animal. There is no snake kibble. You can’t buy filets of rat at the grocery store. Everytime your snake eats you see a whole animal. Sometimes its life ended days or months before you pulled it out of your freezer. Sometimes it will end right before your eyes.
Anyway, this is turning into a ramble. I dunno how many times it will have to be said? But some snakes don’t take to f/t. They are usually more docile species (ball pythons are notorious for being snobs) or wild caught animals. But there are other picky ones too. It happens.
tl;dr Read what I wrote, lazy :P
Precisely. It makes you responsible. There are other people that refuse to feed their picky feeders live and the snakes end up starving— those pet owners are equally as terrible because both are putting their snakes at risk due to their inflexible beliefs.
It makes you responsible because you catered to the needs of your animals.
OP just wants what the above comment says. It’s for sport. It’s “natural” despite the fact that having the snake in captivity is unnatural to begin with.
As someone with experience feeding 50+ snakes of various species, about 1 in 10 ball pythons won’t accept F/T. I’ve literally never had another species of snake refuse prekilled food.
Yeah, picky eaters exist, and need live food! But people intentionally exaggerate how many snakes only take live to defend their shitty care.
I've owned one of the picky eaters and even they can sometimes be switched. It took me nearly 10 years to get my BP, Al to take dead food. It was one of those situations where he would starve himself if he wasn't offered live. While feeding him live I had to be incredibly vigilant and prepared to intervene at any moment. It forced me to feed a larger quantity of significantly smaller prey items (adult mice) to an almost 4 ft snake. It was a lot more expensive and time consuming. However, perseverance paid off and he gladly accepts f/t medium rats now :) I am so much happier feeding f/t. It's safer and easier, and much less stressful for me.
Had some fun with some of the snakes tonight. Athena tried to rip my face off, as usual. But damn she's coloring up nicely. Arrow is now 35 inches and Al is 50 inches.
Watching the crocodile hunter, and just saw Steve find two KSBs :) so great.
All of my snakes are doing so good, they're growing into such fat happy little noodles. I just want to hold and cuddle and love them all. But I can't because they ALL are yesterday :( which is actually awesome because it's hard to get 6 snakes to decide to eat on the same night, but also sad because digestion time...
My BP keeps digging up his bedding and burrowing underneath his water bowl. He has a appropriate sized hide, heating pads, and everything. I don't understand why hes going underneath his bowl? I just wanna make sure hes okay..
What are the temperatures in his enclosure? Snakes should have at least two hides, one on the cool end and one on the warm. So if there is only one that could be part of it. Sometimes it can be from being too warm and trying to keep cool under the water, but sometimes BPs just like to burrow :)
Are hybrid snakes even possible? Or do you not mean hybrid as in a mix of two breeds/species?
And that’s just covering the BP crosses.
So we also have Borneo Bateaters (ReticxBurm), which were originally introduced on the market as a newly discovered species but that shit was busted wide open really fast. name stuck though.
And Cateaters (AfrockxBurm).
And Carpondros (CarpetxGTP)
And whatever you call EmeraldxATB hybrids.
And Boacondas (BCIxYellow Annie).
And this neat Pueblan MilksnakexCornsnake cross.
AND GAMBINOS (Rhino ViperxGaboon) which are actually fairly common in the wild, like this specimen which was field collected.
And then shit tons more out there. this just a sampler.
After being in a serious relationship for so many years, this whole "dating" thing is baffling me. I am utterly amazed that a really attractive guy wants to get to know me. He wants to talk to me on the phone, and take me out. What? Why me? SO WEIRD. I don't even know what to do or say really. I don't know the rules of this crazy game. I have no idea what is generally acceptable and what isn't. I mean, I told him to please not murder me last night. I'm pretty sure that's not a normal thing to say to someone you don't even really know.
I'm just kind of over here in awe, like okay... *I think I can, I think I can*
LIFE HACK:
DON’T, DO NOT reblog peoples’ pets with captions about hating the animals. Keep it to yourself, scroll past it, block the tag and move on. I understand that people don’t like all animals, that’s cool, but please understand that I like my animals and I don’t want to see you hating on them.
Sometimes all you need is someone to text you goodnight just before falling asleep...
Very good rendition of Nake! She thanks you for such a generous rating.
imagene if you hadve three snake one being a nake one being a White Nake and one an Orange Nake it would be
PASTY SELLAD!
Sarah, you have the yellow! Now you just need orange :)
My afternoon yesterday was spent pretty much entirely like this! Taking pictures of Nake whilst my Pokemon had a run around in their outdoor pen :)
Such cute babies!
Cleaning day.
IS THAT ATHENA
Yes it is! And it’s a crappy phone picture in bad lighting so it doesn’t even do her justice. (For comparison that was the quarantine tub she LIVED in when I got her. She’s gotten so big!)
She was so mad about that bath though… Haha
omg she’s gotten so big and even more beautiful! ;3; how has her attitude grown?
She’s still the crankiest brat around and would really like to sink her teeth into me if I gave her the chance, but I love her anyway. I’m not giving up, I will make her love me someday. ;)
