How long do you leave a live rat in a snake tub

Pythons Ball Pythons
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Hi guys How long do you leave a live rat inside a snake tub before you remove it, if the snake is not intrested? Or would you leave it in for a couple of Hrs if you checking up on your snake. Thanks

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Never leave a live rat or mouse in with a snake without watching it. If it doesn’t eat it in 15 minutes of you watching it then remove the rodent.

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You never leave a rat alone with a snake under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. the rat can cause serious damage to the snake and perhaps even kill it. Like @ashleyraeanne said I wouldn’t advise leaving it for more than 15 minutes. The snake either wants to eat right then and there or it dosen’t

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I would agree with @ashleyraeanne and @nathan_e. Pretty much perfect advice.

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Thanks guys. Has it ever happen to anyone that you go to remove the rat or you go to open the bin and the rat happens to jump out ? Now that the rat knows the snakes not intrested it can be aggressive.

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If I ever have to feed live to my snakes, I don’t actually leave the rat/mouse in the tub. I hold the rodent by the tail and present it to my snake. It keeps the rodent from being able to potentially scare the snake or bite it, and the snake will always grab the head. Each one I have given to my snakes this way is taken almost instantly. I don’t feed live anymore though since my BPs have decided anything dangled by its tail is food, whether it is alive or dead doesn’t matter lol.

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@tse_22 if you’re feeding live rats you should be feeding off of tongs…I use 24" hemostats. Keeps you far enough away from the snake, but keeps ahold of the rat no matter what. Snake doesn’t eat within 20-30 seconds? Move on to the next snake. I do not recommend dropping the rodent in the enclosure

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What size rat? A pup or fuzzy can be left in overnight, it won’t hurt the snake at that age. A bigger prey item has teeth and can hurt the snake, and at the same time the snake has presumably been eating enough to grow to a size that it’s taking larger prey, so can miss a meal without too much trouble. In that case I’d probably take it out after 30 minutes or so.

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Well since this person has a follow up question if the rat has ever jumped out when they opened the tub then that would mean they are at least feeding small rats which do have developed teeth and can cause damage to a juvenile bp. But yes it is true that if it is a wean or pinky or even a fuzzy you can safely leave those with a baby bp overnight.

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5/10 min, if a snake does not mean soon as the rat hit the tub floor or in the first 5 to 10 it will not eat.

Now it depends on the rat size as well if you are feeding a rat fuzzy to an hatchling you can leave it overnight and that is the only exception.

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I would definitely agree with @teddydalton on the safety part of that. But if you have a high strung snake that displays higher levels of stress, sometimes that can stress them out and make them not want to eat as often for a short period of time. Only my opinion of course.

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Typically I will only leave a rodent in with the snake until I offer food to every snake.

After I will go back and check each one if the snake has not eaten then I will remove The rodent if the snake looks defensive. If the snake looks interested I will leave the rodent for a bit longer but I’m supervising making sure everything is safe. Some of my snakes need a little bit before they actually take the rodent.

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