Some of my other interests...

[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!