Switching snakes from live

All Reptiles
31

Be snarky if you want, but it’s super obvious. Wash yourself in only warm water for a week and you’ll quickly learn the difference. You don’t have to be a rocket surgeon to be able to tell the difference between a prekilled, thawed, or live mouse: sniff one of each. :slight_smile:

I hope I’ve made that point quite clear already.

Outside of how water works… that has always been the point. There are people willing to debate that the smell of the brains/spinal fluid/cranial fluid/whatever are the thing that “does it” for ball pythons as some sort of natural attractant. I’m unconvinced. Colubrids, etc, seems like it could be a possibility and at least one other member has agreed. I’d still suggest chicken hearts or other scenting first.

The conversation started because I wanted to point it out as a thing to generally avoid. It was an extremely common suggestion, technically still is, and I’m pretty sure it comes from when we had a lot of wild caught animals. I could be wrong. :woman_shrugging:

In the case of the short tailed pythons… if you have one that stops eating… it’s because something has gone wrong with the enclosure. Definitely similar considerations for ball pythons. Hides, prey size, heating up the food item, etc, are all great things to try.

Crushing mouse skulls is just wasted effort that can mask other problems. For this and many other reasons I absolutely suggest that new keepers avoid something like this. That was the point. :slight_smile:

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32

Ok Bill Nye. I’ll pass but…point not taken :slight_smile:

33

Back on something resembling a topic, yeah?

I’m not going to be trolled on how water works. :slight_smile:

34

To be clear, I don’t mean to imply that thawing rodents in water takes their natural scent away entirely, only that it reduces the scent compared to a rat that was thawed “on a countertop, then warmed with a hair drier” or whichever methods that don’t involve water.

Taking a bath without soap is not the comparison I am seeking. It’s the “not taking a bath at all” concept that applies with picky eaters. I had this theory presented to me by a local reptile breeder with quite a large collection. He noted to me that his feeding day success rate greatly improved when he would thaw his rodents at room temperature instead of water.

While you’re correct that water won’t eliminate the smell entirely, it does take some scent with it down the drain. Heat will restore some scent, but not to the effectiveness of thawing without water.

Lastly, I would like to add a tip that I missed;

If you have multiple animals, feed your picky eaters last. I notice when feeding that my animals each have a stronger feeding response as I continue. I believe the smell of rodents starts to grow in the room and the animals enter feeding mode as it spreads. My retic is a great example, she lunges the instant I open her tub on actual feeding day. Any other day, she’s typically calm when I open her tub. I noted that I never feed her first. I always feed the rat pup eaters first, while the small adult rats are thawing. By the time the small adult rats are ready, the scent has permeated the snake room and everyone has detected movement from me at the front of the tubs.

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35

Right on @viperine IK what you were saying!

Also nice tip with feeding the picky ones last I have been offering them first because they’re the largest but I’ll switch that up and see if it helps.

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Yeah, for sure, I wasn’t trying to imply you were suggesting to toss them in the dishwasher, either, but I also do not believe that braining restores their natural scent. It’s a completely different smell to their skin/fur. Ball pythons hunt on heat, motion, and smell - not cerebral fluid. That’s the point I was trying to make above when we ended up on the segue way of misunderstanding water.

You can absolutely thaw in water and dry with a paper towel/hair dry it, though. Extra effort but doesn’t change the smell: the initial water thawing won’t matter. :slight_smile: If you want to speed up your feeding day there isn’t any reason to not use water and then dump them in a bowl and leave them in your feeding room for a bit. Spread them out under a lamp or on top of heat tape (belly up!) if you want. Someone also mentioned using a plastic bag for convenience, too - sometimes water seeps in, but it won’t matter.

I just put rats in two dozen snakes ranging from hatchling to adult python, colubrids, and a short tail yesterday. :slight_smile:

All of your tips have been great! It’s to be expected that some misunderstand them on the internet. :slight_smile:

37

Well said Bill. Truce :wink:

38

I’m in camp dry f/t rats. Mostly because I don’t want to deal with wet rats and gross rat soup afterwards. But, I’m also lazy, and doing the whole wait forever and then stand there blow-drying for another forever was really annoying. So I ended up making this rat incubator type thing.

It’s made from the styrofoam shipper that my rats came in. I put a zoomed heat pad at the bottom that I didn’t need for anything else. It’s a good choice since the heat output per area is a bit less than the heat tape I have. Then put a wire cooling rack for baking on top of it to make a gap so the rats aren’t directly on the pad. Throw a piece of old cardboard or paper towel on top of that and then put the rats on that. Cover the top of the box with an old towel folded to fit. Set a timer so I don’t forget (I forgot once and they literally cooked. It was not a good time.) Adding in a fan like you would for an incubator is not necessary but it makes it work a bit better. And now heating up rats on feeding day is easy mode.

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39

I don’t know about not selling if they are on live or not but about 25 years ago I experimented and only kept and bred frozen thawed eaters together. Guess what they produced? Frozen thawed eaters. I have NEVER had to use live to get ANY ball python I bred feeding. Go figure. So to answer the question I would NOT buy a live feeder ball baby or adult from anyone. I think it’s slightly genetic. Just my preference.

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40

That’s an interesting theory…

That could almost be an additional selling point if you could say with confidence your stock was all f/t feeders. How large a sample size are we talking here?

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41

I’ve floated that theory before years ago. I don’t have exact numbers , but I started saving babies that ate f/t right off the bat as breeders so generations have past with just f/t rat eaters. I don’t breed ball pythons in large numbers now. But I still maintain that fussy eaters produce fussy eaters and great eaters right off the bat produce great eaters.

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42

It’s very intriguing, definitely filing that away to chew on and research some more.

So I assume we are talking dozens? So not like a single or mere handful of individuals but not thousands as well?

@stuartsamazingsnakes if it’s ok with you I’d like to take this convo and run it past a few friends higher on the food chain than me and see if they have ever thought about it before.

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43

I think this is very interesting anyone else care to weigh in?

  1. Do you think this is true based on your own experiences, or COULD be true based off what you know about the species?

  2. If it could be true then is it potentially useful, is it possible to be “sure” enough about this to use as a selling point, etc.

Reason I ask #2 is it’s possible that even if true it may not be useful/worthwhile or practical to pursue. So is it possible, and could it be worthwhile to work towards.

44

In the case of ball pythons, I found that they tend to take live most of the time even if they don’t need to feed. When I feed frozen thawed they seem to eat when they need to. This has been my experience. If you can stomach waiting long enough, they will switch over when they are ready. Obviously everyone has a different experience but I have had snakes eat live every time and not frozen but eventually they will feed. If it’s a female, sometimes you can just put a male in there and the process of building eggs will make them hungrier and they will eat anything and I have transitioned snakes over to FT this way. Sure, you don’t want to breed a skinny snake, but they are quite resilient. It’s not like they are feeding every single week in the wild

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To be honest, I’ve kept reptiles for 30 years. I’ve also been a hobbyist Fisherman in the same time too. I put myself on a pedestal admitting it, but ball pythons are a LOT like fish. Live bait fishermen have a very high success rate across the board, and guys who “know” how to present artificial baits have the same rate of success. You might even argue that some expert artificial bait fishermen are actually better than the guys that use live bait.

There is a very good reason behind this. Live bait guys (equivalent to live feeders) present their offering and wait for a response.

Artificial bait guys (equivalent to frozen thawed feeders) are quicker to employ methods in their attempts.

A live bait guy will cast once and wait.

An artificial bait guy will doubt his placement of his cast, frequently try other locations, speeds, or colors.

Ball pythons, in my humble opinion, are not any more complicated than some of the intelligent sport fish I chase after. As a Musky Hunter, I find myself often applying my fishing tactics to my reptiles. For those of you who don’t know, Musky, or Muskellunge as they are known, are very often called the fish of 10,000 casts. They truly test your patience.

On that level, I have developed patience with my pets. And it has rewarded me very well.

I fish most often with artificial lures, and that might play into my tendency to offer F/T to my pets. Done right, it offers value and sustainability to my collection.

To each their own. I don’t judge people for their preferences. I have just found a lot of success in my methods and continue to do so.

We have an amazing hobby that evolves every day! If it works, keep it up. I just try to do whatever it takes to keep happy, healthy animals.

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49

this is very interesting. I am also curious as to what your sample size was, adults, babies and how long did you have them? Do you know if the babies you sold continued to eat f/t and also produced f/t only eaters? were they all ball pythons in your experiment?

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50

Me too very interested to be texted this on to a few big dogs going to follow up this weekend

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51

i have a 6-month-old male ball python and he was sold to me on live mice and I have been feeding live ever since, I really don’t like it and i was wondering how to switch him over to f/t

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52

Here’s a similar thread that you should read through:

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53

I just bought a frozen mouse the same size as the live and offered it to my snake. I fully thaw out the rodent in warm water(that is important) then use a heat gun to warm the head so that my snake strikes at that first.

Usually takes a couple minutes but they take it. To them its alive as long as its at the right temp.

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