Hi Guys,
What’s up! New to the morph community. I’m looking to start breeding snakes. Currently in the learning process right now. One question I have is. What kind of diet is recommended for breeding snakes? Does it matter if feed live or frozen(dead) mice or?
Thank you in advance to all comments.
Welcome to the community. You will find a lot of good information and a lot of very experienced perople here to help in all areas.
As far as f/t or live, it does not matter. Some may say to try and switch and alway keep all bp on f/t (not just during breeding), but that is really a personal decision.
Before and during the mating time, you can try to feed more often to add more fat on the female. But if it does not want to, then just do what it tells you.
I think it truly boils down to what you have access to. If buying frozen is cheaper/easier for you, then go frozen.
If you want to breed your own rodent supply, and you want to feed live, feed live. Some snakes will only eat live, so you just have to adjust based on what they’ll eat sometimes.
As said above, either is fine as far as nutrition.
When breeding your own feeders, you could always use a CO2 chamber to euthanize them for feeding or freezing for later. I’ll actually be building one myself soon for my own rats colony.
Personally, I stick to frozen thaw as much as possible and try to switch young snakes to it asap. The larger the rat, the easier it is for them to fight back. I’m currently monitoring a female for a bite and two scratches from the rat she took live last week.
Any time you are feeding live you need to be aware of what’s going on and be prepared to jump in and move the teeth away from your snake with tongs if needed.
Frozens tend to be cheaper than going to the reptile shop and picking up live. Breeding your own is expensive to start up getting supplies and racks but not too bad if you have a feed shop near y that supplies bulk food and bedding.
Yep I agree with @d_y_python it does not matter what type of food item as long as they are eating. Also I do try to give both males and females slightly more food or bigger prey items early in the breeding season. I find some females get voracious at this time and I feed my males a little more then usual, just because I know some of them go off feed during a lot of the breeding season. If they are in great shape already you don’t have to increase much, and some breeders never increase their food at all anytime with great results. The most important thing is to watch and see when they are ready, if they are building, locking right away and seeking cooler temps. They all have a mind of their own and won’t breed until they think they are ready. Good luck 
Big Thank you, to everyone who answered my question! I’ve been feeding F/T due to overall safety of the bp. As I have learned feeding live can be a little bit of a risk for the snake getting hurt by the mouse or rat. Again, thank you all! It was big help!