| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| acd1984 |
Posted - 29/02/2012 : 21:42:51
And is it more humane than live feeding (from the preys pov) |
| 20 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| anatess |
Posted - 27/03/2012 : 16:27:28
Sabbiyah, yes, it is much better to just feed the live rat to the snake than have the rat freeze to death in the freezer.
But, at the same time, live feeding doesn't just mean throw the live rat into the snake's viv and walk away. So, just to be sure you get information on the proper way to feed live, this is what is usually done:
1.) When you pick up the rat from the store, ask the store owner if he can give you one or two pellets of what the store is feeding the rat. Don't worry if he won't give you one. Rats eat a variety of things, you can give him some carrots or biscuits or bread.
2.) Give the rat water to drink and food to eat before you feed him off. This will lower the risk of your rat attacking the snake.
3.) Get a pair of tongs (or chopsticks or similar). If you use tongs, you can use these to grab the rat by the tail closest to his butt to pick him up (it's probably easier to just use your hands though).
4.) If you have tons of decorations in your viv, it would be safer to move the snake to a feeding box. If you have a sparse viv (like just a couple hides and a water bowl), you can just take out the hide that the snake is not hiding in and then put some rat food on the floor of the viv a few paces away from the snake, put the rat by the food (don't worry if he doesn't take to the rat food, it's just there to give the rat an option).
5.) Watch the process with tongs/stick in hand until the rat strikes the rat and coils. Watch carefully to see if the snake got the rat by the back of the head - sometimes the snake grabs the rat in another spot so it leaves the rat's head free to move giving him the opportunity to sink his teeth into the snake - when you see this happen, use your tong or stick to hold the rat's teeth away from the snake.
6.) When the snake lets go of the dead rat, you can go ahead and walk away.
7.) If the snake doesn't strike the rat in 15 minutes, just go ahead and take the rat out of the viv and enjoy a pet rat for the next 5 days or so until next feed. :)
Easy does it. |
| Keg |
Posted - 27/03/2012 : 15:41:31
agreed that is horrible.
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| Kelfezond |
Posted - 26/03/2012 : 21:23:14
Jesus xD that's a terrible mistake to make!
Yeah in future just let the snake do it, I speak from experience when I say the rodents don't know it's coming, most of the time they'll happily come sniffing at the snake to see whats going on then BAM! All over with. Much nicer than freezing them. |
| JanieW |
Posted - 24/03/2012 : 20:50:25
Sabriyyah, while I have no doubt you thought you were doing the right thing, in future please listen to Bob and Del as freezing to death is a horrible way to die.
You used mountain climbers to justify as being humane, but you have to realise that those climbers started out being warm, and then gradually hypothermia and exhaustion took over. That is not the same as being plunged into a freezer alive. |
| Evolution Morphs |
Posted - 24/03/2012 : 20:11:09
As above :( made me sad reading that
The rats are better off being feed live
Or make a gas chamber and let the rats die in a humane way
I can tell you how to make a gas chamber If you like its not that hard or costs much
Or google rat gas chamber
Poor rats :(
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| Lotabob |
Posted - 24/03/2012 : 18:56:18
This is absolutely NOT a humane way to kill your rodents (or any animal for that matter) just give them to the snake live and let it do the job quickly for you. The way you do it is an extremely long winded, painful, and cruel way to die and they dont peacefully go to sleep they SLOWLY freeze to death. Please if you only take one thing from this forum please let it be that you dont subject your rodents to torture any more. |
| Sabriyyah |
Posted - 24/03/2012 : 18:45:23
I cannot buy dead rodents where i live so i buy live ones and then put them in the freezer in a plastic box. I thought long and hard about it and realised that they die of hypothermia (cf people on Everest). when i first did it I fretted for hours but when i went to the freezer for a look they were all huddled together to keep warm and had clearly peacefully gone to sleep. i have tried to breed them myself but find it all a bit time-consuming and messy so just keep on buying. not that it makes any difference as she stopped eating last June! I wonder if she qualifies for a special award? |
| ppl_clectr |
Posted - 12/03/2012 : 13:14:48
Here in Canada there is no law, and not much objection to feeding live. I guess they would be eating live in the wild, right? All 3 of the different breeders I have gotten my Royals from feed live rat pups to start, and then switch the babies to frozen. I have one boy who was fed live mice from the start, and refuses to eat the other (pet store). I don't have a problem with feeding live mice, the kill is fast and probably more humane than how our food is dispatched. When one of the others, who normally eats frozen rats, is off feed for more than 3 consecutive feeds, I give them a live mouse. It stimulates their feed response, and they go back to frozen rats the next feed. That was advice I got from the breeder of my Butter girl. But that is just me, I don't have a problem feeding live mice. |
| anatess |
Posted - 09/03/2012 : 19:07:27
Oh! It just came to me, Bats. You meant to freeze a pre-killed rat that the snake refused to eat. Gotcha. Yeah, I've never prekilled for a royal. I used to prekill for my hognose but I quit doing that because I just didn't feel good about having to do it especially after I couldn't find the keyboard cleaners without the added bitterant anymore. My hognose now eats frogs... |
| anatess |
Posted - 09/03/2012 : 18:51:08
quote:
Originally posted by BurnedAtTheStake
Sounds cool!
No, there are no UK laws that forbid us to breed our own rodents, so far as I know. I don't think prekilling or even live feeding if the snake consistently refused prekilled, would be prosecutable as long as the keeper was discreet and responsible and above all caring.
If I had the space I'd breed my own rodents and prekill and freeze any surplus (freezing would also be an alternative to discarding refused prey too; I would prefer to prekill rather than let a snake become accustomed to live feeding, as, in the UK, if that snake had to go to another home, then there could be difficulties if it would only feed on live.)
Ah, Utopia ...
That's the cool thing about ASFs over common rat. You don't have to kill/freeze excess! They can just live in your ASF condo for as long as their lifespans. They won't ever outgrow your royal. Every winter, my snakes go on a fast for about 4-6 weeks or so. This is also usually the time when my breeding pair starts to reduce their litter size as they get past a year of age. But, I have gotten into a situation once where I have more rats than can fit into my high rise. What I did was "retire" my breeding pair. Just separate them and let them live out the rest of their lives in a hamster house. Most people just move the breeding pair into the "snake food" pool. I didn't do that because my breeding pairs were chosen as my pets complete with names and such and I felt they have provided me with such joy that they get a place in my "pet burial ground" in my backyard...
Okay, here's a picture of my high rise while I was building it. Okay, you might ask - there's not much light in those tubs! Well... ASFs live in burrows and are nocturnal. They don't want too much light.
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| n/a |
Posted - 09/03/2012 : 18:40:20
Sounds cool!
No, there are no UK laws that forbid us to breed our own rodents, so far as I know. I don't think prekilling or even live feeding if the snake consistently refused prekilled, would be prosecutable as long as the keeper was discreet and responsible and above all caring.
If I had the space I'd breed my own rodents and prekill and freeze any surplus (freezing would also be an alternative to discarding refused prey too; I would prefer to prekill rather than let a snake become accustomed to live feeding, as, in the UK, if that snake had to go to another home, then there could be difficulties if it would only feed on live.)
Ah, Utopia ... |
| anatess |
Posted - 09/03/2012 : 18:25:42
If it is in the realm of possibility there (I know there are UK laws that may not allow you to do it), try raising some. I have TONS of tips for you that makes everything super easy!
The trick here is to get African soft-fur rats (ASF - multimammates). These guys are hamsters with a tail! They're super cute. The reason why I chose this particular one is because it is PERFECT for royals! ASFs have the good things about mice and the good things about rats. They don't get as big as the common rat but they are bigger than a mouse. So, they could live their lives to the maximum age and never outgrow your adult royal! You can't do that with a common rat (you have to feed them off by 4 months of age, otherwise, they get too big). And a mouse will require a bigger colony because you'll have to feed multiple mice to an adult royal.
Another thing is the smell... ASFs take after the rat that has a milder pee smell than mice. You'll have to clean a mouse condo every 3 days to keep the smell down. You can go with a weekly cleaning of an ASF condo.
And another thing is that ASFs produce an average of 12 babies every 3 weeks (more while the breeding pair is younger, then it starts to decline around 1 year of age). You only need 1 breeding pair to maintain up to 4 royals.
I have 6 royals. I have 2 breeding pairs. So, I only have 7 units in my ASF condo - 2 units housing 1 breeding pair each. 2 units of females, 2 units of males, and one empty clean unit ready for occupancy. My ASF condo is a "high rise" made up of 7 cement mixing tubs (I built it myself using detailed instructions from the Internet) set in drawers. It has a "food hopper" that I only have to fill twice a week and it has a gravity-fed water system that uses a 5-gallon bucket water reservoir that I only have to clean out and refill once a month.
Every week, this is my routine: I open an occupied tub and transfer all the ASFs to the empty tub. I then dump all the toys into a 5 gallon bucket of water with 1/8 cup of bleach. I scrape out the bedding to a trash bin then spray the tub with water from the water spigot set to "jet". I wipe the tub with paper towels (it doesn't have to be perfectly dry) and then fill with about 1.5 inches of kiln-dried pine bedding. I take the toys out of the bucket, shake it to get most of the water out, put it in the tub. Done. I then open up another dirty occupied tub, transfer the residents to the newly cleaned tub and clean out like before. This whole process takes me about 30 minutes for all 6 tubs on a regular week. It takes a little more than that every 3 weeks when new babies are born because then I have to move the older babies to the male/female tubs which requires some identification of body parts. 
The high rise unit is about 2 feet by 3 feet by 6 feet tall. Fits in a corner of my patio.
They are super fun to watch and play with, although you gotta be careful because they can be very nippy! |
| acd1984 |
Posted - 06/03/2012 : 23:11:11
That's great Anatess, it is a shame when I have to throw a rat away that has given its life for food, I think your a good example of how a responsible owner deals with live feeding |
| Lotabob |
Posted - 06/03/2012 : 19:08:53
Anatess I admire your devotion to your prey items your snakes get the home cooked meal, mine get the TV dinner. I wish I could do something like this I just dont have the time or space but I think you have the perfect set up for both rat and snake. |
| anatess |
Posted - 06/03/2012 : 18:17:46
Frozen rats are available here just as easily as live. I don't buy either one.
I raise my own rats. That's how I prefer to promote the cycle of life. My rats live a happy life - well, as happy as they can be under my care. They get fed to the snake live as if they were out in the jungles of Africa. I raise African rats which is the natural prey of the royal python.
You know how a royal is a finicky eater, right? A lot of times, people who feed frozen end up throwing the rat down the trash heap because the snake decided not to eat for weeks at a time. I see that as more of a sad state of affairs for the rat than me feeding my snake a live rat who gets to live happily for another week or even a month when the snakes are not hungry. Having my rats chasing each other down the paper towel tubes is much more fun than sitting in a freezer dead... or in a trash heap even. They are super duper cute.
By the way, African rats have an average lifespan of about 2.5 years. I've been raising them since 2008. I keep my breeding pairs for pets so, they all die of old age. I notice that the females live shorter lives than males - right around 2 years. All my breeding pairs have lived at least 2 years. No prevalent health issues. If they would, then they get to take a trip to the vet. I haven't needed to take any of them in yet.
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| n/a |
Posted - 03/03/2012 : 20:29:37
Yes indeed - I used to breed rabbits for food and felt home (and very swift and hopefully considerate) killing was kinder than shipping the bewildered creatures to a 'professional' slaughterer.
As live feeding in the UK is technically frowned on (it's illegal to feed live but also illegal to allow a snake who will only feed on live to starve?) it's far better to feed f/t rodents - also a snake who will only feed on live might one day have to be rehomed in emergency and the new owner might not be able to cope with live feeding and the snake might refuse to eat f/t and starve.
Plus professionally killed frozen/thawed rodents, it has to be said, are much easier to store for most snake keepers; snake convenience food in fact. But I really would like to breed my own rodents and prekill but, in common with most snake keepers, I don't have the space and facilities so have to order rodents from online suppliers.
I must say here, where do the brave youtube video merchants get their rodents from before they film the creature being constricted by the snake? Doubt if all of them have bred the rodent themselves.
I really would like to raise rodents in the best possible circs (which means the best possible quality food for the snakes) and prekill in the gentlest and most stress free way and feed freshly to my snakes. That is herp keeper's Utopia I guess, and a decent life, while it lasts, for the rodents themselves.
Maybe someday ... |
| acd1984 |
Posted - 03/03/2012 : 19:15:52
i like to think that animals that we eat are treated right before served up on our plates, just like i hope that the rats/mice are given a good life before they are snake food whether it be frozen or live.
so live feeding has its advantages like quality of life rather than a battery of rats to the slaughter (dependant on owner i guess).
and live feeding is clearly more natural, but is it live feeding that people are repelled by or (as i suspect) is it the manner of the keeper that makes it hard to deal with, for instance some videos on youtube are clearly using live feeding as a form of entertainment and while i dont disagree with filming a live feed, for a snake to be effectivly cheered on as it kills its prey in my opinion is vulgar. |
| n/a |
Posted - 01/03/2012 : 21:03:32
I've gathered from various sources that adult rats may not actually live very long; terminal health problems seem to be prevalent.
Plus a rodent sold for snake food needs to be well fed to reach the desired weight and condition for commercial sale (and for that 'product' to be competitive in that market) in the fastest time possible. Plus overcrowding/neglect is going to be detrimental to getting the animals into top condition.
I'm not saying a life as a rodent destined for the co2 chamber and snake food is an ideal existence, but there may be worse fates, such as laboratory fodder or a bad pet home? |
| JanieW |
Posted - 01/03/2012 : 20:25:48
If there was no option other than feed live rodents, I doubt i'd keep snakes, no in fact I know I wouldn't.
I refused to follow my dad into a scientific career as it involved experiments on mice. When we kept a croft, breeding sheep, cattle and pigs..I shall never forget when I delivered the pigs to the slaughter house..I foolishly glanced to the back corner...
I know snakes eat live rodents, lizards etc. in the wild, but there is no way I could place a live rodent in as food.
That's just me lol and in no way is my view meant as a slight :) |
| Evolution Morphs |
Posted - 01/03/2012 : 20:15:58
Thanks bob we like to think we give them the quality of life they deserve as feeders
We sell as pets that's our first target
and buy frozen from our local wholesaler with the money we make
or bedding , food
They always have water / food every day and there bedings chanced once a week
Like you say I know that they have been looked after
Sometimes we can't not keep up demand for the royals and do have to buy from a wholesaler of mammals
And the rats and mice come from Germany as far as I know
We also breed feeder mice but there not playing ball at the moment there eating more of the baby's than we're getting
That and I've read mice dont do so well in the winter breeding
So coming spring/summer ;) |
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