Some of my other interests...

[Keri]

Originally Posted by Doug

The snakes dont give me the heebie geebees but feeding them the rats or mice sure would.

oh just think of them as tiny little (hairy) steaks!

Originally Posted by Ephraim

thats a pretty nice pastel ball. I've got 2 ball pythons as well, had them for about 7 years now. They are great snakes. Nice to see that there are some other reptile nerds on here! I've got the balls, a beardie, a ornate uro, some leopard geckos, a box turtle, some red foot tortoises, a yellow foot tortoise, some axoltls, and some veild chameleons and a new baby blue tounge as of yesterday.

They sure are sweet snakes, I'm jealous of your collection! especially the baby blue tongued, they are so cute! Have you heard of the BC reptile club? (are you in bc? I forgot to look) you should check it out anyhow http://www.dasnakes.com/bcrc/
You should post pics of your guys!

edit: ohhh calgary.... well, still pretty close! you should join there are other alberta members, including breeders

Originally Posted by Diana

Uhhh did I say boa? I did mean ball. It was late at night and there was some drinking.

Wowzers. Currently as far as reptiles go I only have the corn and a large male veiled chameleon. I've kept leopard geckos in the past, and we are considering adding a ball to our batch, I just LOVE the piebalds but yipes are they pricey.

I knew what you meant

I LOVE the piebalds as well and am watching the price come down.... $3k now Vs $10k a little over 2yrs ago!

*steeples fingers and waits*

[Keri]

Pic from the other night at dinner time, she's just finished off a mouse and is working it down (that's why her neck looks all distorted)

[Lance]

Originally Posted by Keri

I was feeding them frozen/thawed small rats that I was breeding but they took up too much space & time so I'm trying African Soft Furred rats now, they are about 2x the size of a mouse and don't smell like rats and mice. We'll see how that goes.

I didn't realize you can feed snakes dead food. For some reason I thought they had to be alive. If this is the case could you feed them beef heart or whatever?
Very cool snakes by the way.

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by Lance

I didn't realize you can feed snakes dead food. For some reason I thought they had to be alive. If this is the case could you feed them beef heart or whatever?
Very cool snakes by the way.

I too have also always thought it had to be live food. Beautiful snakes

[Keri]

Thanks for the compliments

Originally Posted by muck

I can't imagine it would be easy to breed frozen rats..

Nice looking snakes... even if they give me the heebee geebees.

You sure can... it just takes a while for them to warm up to each other (hardy har har har ) I use C02 to euthanize them before freezing, it's quick and painless.

Originally Posted by Lance

I didn't realize you can feed snakes dead food. For some reason I thought they had to be alive. If this is the case could you feed them beef heart or whatever?
Very cool snakes by the way.

I don't ever feed live rodents, it's dangerous as they can bite back and even kill your snake (yes, I know this happens in the wild but... a snake in the wild can get away from a rat it doesn't want to eat while one stuck in a cage cannot. Even a small mouse can do a lot of damage on a snake that won't defend itself) and I doubt it's much fun for the rodent! There are some snakes that won't accept pre-killed prey but the majority will.
As for feeding "part-foods" like beef heart ....even if the snake would accept it (most wouldn't) it's not nutrionally complete, where as a frozen/thawed rodent is EVERYTHING (vitamins,minerals,protein,fat,etc) that a snake needs all in one.
You can buy frozen rodents at many pet stores if you don't want to breed them yourself...I just do it because it gets expensive to buy them with that many mouths to feed! Plus... This way, I know the rodents I keep have decent lives with fun food and enrichment before they are killed. I may be vegetarian but my pets are not!