{"id":376,"date":"2014-01-19T22:06:58","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T07:06:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/?p=376"},"modified":"2014-03-08T22:08:02","modified_gmt":"2014-03-09T07:08:02","slug":"feeding-your-snake-safely-or-how-to-switch-over-to-ft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/?p=376","title":{"rendered":"Feeding your Snake Safely, or how to switch over to F\/T"},"content":{"rendered":"
If you are reading this you are most likely in the position of wanting to switch over from live feeding to frozen \/ thawed (F\/T).\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe you are already trying the F\/T method and finding that you are having some trouble with the process involved.\u00c2\u00a0 Never fear, you can learn how to do this so that your snake will eat and your snake can learn to accept F\/T! \u00c2\u00a0Not only is it safer, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cleaner and far more convenient since you can keep food for your snake in your freezer!<\/span><\/p>\n<\/header>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/span><\/a>\"rodentpro\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Firstly I want to point out some misconceptions and explain why they are wrong, such as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153snakes need to eat live, \u00c2\u00a0since that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what they do in the wild\u00e2\u20ac\u009d or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153my snake would never eat something already dead, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s instinct to kill is too strong\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 or a plethora of other excuses of why a snake in captivity should be fed a live prey item.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another problem that makes the F\/T feeding process appear as though it is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153not working\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is overfeeding of snakes or trying to feed too often.\u00c2\u00a0 In general for healthy snakes adult snakes only need to eat every two to three weeks (depending on species) and juveniles need to eat once a week.\u00c2\u00a0 This post does not address neonates.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you are finding that your snake is not eating F\/T on a regular schedule, try to push out the schedule by a week.\u00c2\u00a0 Eventually a snake will eat, and unlike mammals snakes can go without food for months without it affecting their overall health.\u00c2\u00a0 I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve personally owned Ball Pythons that actively refused to eat for five months for no apparent reason; their environment had no changes, there was nothing to stress them, they just decided not to eat!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It may be frustrating for the owner to offer food that is refused, but once you accept that is just part of having captive reptiles, dealing with feeding and refusals will be a lot easier to handle. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also nice to have a couple of snakes so that anything left over can be given to another snake.\u00c2\u00a0 My boas got \u00e2\u20ac\u0153second helpings\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for those five months since the prey items the BP refused were smaller than the Boas normal meal so I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t waste and I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t really overfeed the boas either. Alternatively you can refreeze a thawed prey item once and reuse it, but if you have a couple snakes and know you have a finicky eater, then you can plan for the possibility that one of your snakes might get seconds. Or one of your snakes that is a good eater regardless, might get fed last just in case you use the potentially refused item to fed to your \u00e2\u20ac\u0153good eater.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the wild the prey item can escape if the snake is not hungry, but in an enclosed area (be that a strike box or the snakes home) if the animal is not dead, snake owners will resort to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153stunning\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the animal, usually by grabbing the poor animal by it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tail, swinging it in the air and finally banging its head against a doorway or a table to stun it, which does keep the snake safe but is cruel.\u00c2\u00a0 If the animal is not stunned and the snake does not kill instantly the prey item can inflict terrible bites to your snake. Bites can happen in a minute.\u00c2\u00a0 Terrible wounds happen if the prey item is left with the snake for long periods of time unsupervised.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither situation is good.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There is absolutely no reason to feed live. It can be cruel (for the prey item) and unsafe, potentially for both animals involved. \u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Live feeding involves being either cruel to the prey item to keep the snake safe or endangering the snake by just tossing the prey item in.\u00c2\u00a0 Here are some examples of what live prey items can do to your snake:<\/span><\/p>\n

\"dont-feed-live1\"<\/span><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\"39946_medium\"<\/span><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\"preybite_fatal\"<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve personally been involved with the process to train snakes that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153would never eat F\/T\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to eat F\/T so I will argue that that is no excuse. There are techniques that you can use for stubborn eaters explained in detail here and for the most finicky cases look at item 8) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153braining\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (of F\/T prey items only, please don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do this to a live animal!):\u00c2\u00a0http:\/\/lllreptile.com\/info\/library\/care-and-husbandry-articles\/-\/feeding-stubborn-snakes\/<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the process of defrosting and preparing the prey items, \u00c2\u00a0I made this \u00e2\u20ac\u0153F\/T defrost and snake feeding video\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to show the process I go through to feed my snakes (at time of video I had nine):\u00c2\u00a0http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=875sKWUko-k&feature=youtu.be<\/span><\/a>\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0It is 15 minutes long in total and it is meant to be informative only. Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t judge me by my inability to speak loudly for the camera or the old paint-filled laundry sink please!<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One thing not specifically addressed in this post is where to feed your snake and we will post another educational blog entry about this in the near future.\u00c2\u00a0 In short, for most of my snakes I feed them in strike boxes.\u00c2\u00a0 I have a couple that get fed in their cages, but that is mostly due to the fact that those two are my big female boas., one at nearly 7 feet and the other is over 8 feet.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither of the big females have a strong strike response in cage or out, so it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just easier to feed in cage. For anything that gets fed in its cage and\/or on substrate, there is always a danger that the snake will accidentally consume substrate. A small piece of substrate most likely won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t hurt your snake, but if it gets a big mouthful of substrate that could lead to digestion issues and possible regurgitation. If you do feed \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in cage\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I highly recommend putting down a piece of newspaper, then dropping the prey item onto the newspaper. This should help eliminate accidental ingestion of substrate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"OLYMPUS<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A great care sheet on snakes can be found at\u00c2\u00a0http:\/\/www.anapsid.org\/mainsnakes.html<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00c2\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are reading this you are most likely in the position of wanting to switch over from live feeding to frozen \/ thawed (F\/T).\u00c2\u00a0 Or maybe you are already trying the F\/T method and finding that you are having … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.perlgurl.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}