Feeding Time

[Jwedd]

Im just wondering how do people here feed their snakes, i mean do you drop a food item in a bucket and add the snake in question, or do you leave the snake in its home and introduce a food item with forceps/tweezers/etc?

[Nicole]

For my Coastal and Diamond I pop the feeding bucket in front of the enclosure in question, and then open the enclosure. They will leave the enclosure and get into the bucket and strike a cute little hunting pose and wait. Then when i come along with the food on tongs they will grab it.
The Maccie gets fed in a bucket too, but I have to put her in there.
The Olive hatchling will only eat for me in her enclosure so far, I leave food with her and she will eat, she won't take food off the tongs, yet.

[lutzd]

Welcome to the site. Is that avatar you looking in or you looking out?

I think that Nicole's method is the best, as the snake doesn't then associate the enclosure with food.

having said that, probably because I'm a lazy sod, I normally just chuck the food into the enclosure with the snake. Works for me and the snake! :wink:

However, I have, in the past, used both methods including holding the prey item with tongs in front of the snake, particular if the snake in question is a fussy eater. This applies to dead prey items.

I've found (with the notable exception of my new olive, who hasn't eaten a damn thing yet since I got him! ) that live prey always goes down a treat - they never hesitate to strike. However, be aware that as your snake grows, live prey above the size of, say, a weaner or furrie, can do damage to your snake if it isn't caught JUST right by the snake, so pre-killed or thawed frozen is the go there.

If you feed in the enclosure, I and several others have found that if you use a snake hook to retrieve the snake when NOT feeding, then the snake will associate the hook with a non-feeding event, and generally come out placidly.

.... but like I said, if you have the time and patience to wait while the snake finishes his dinner, Nicole's bucket trick is probably the best.

I'm sure others in the group will give you further (and probably better!) advice.

Hope that helps.

[almaron]

I feed in tub with a lid. I do this 95% of the time, mostly because I like to weigh my snakes, and how much they eat for my records. Either way works ok, just be careful about teaching the snake that opening the cage means dinner time.

[Jwedd]

great, thanks for everyones replies so far it seems the removal of the snake for feeding is the clear winner so far.. but keep the replies coming its interesting to see the various methods people use.

Lutzd the avatar is not me at all, but a screen capture from the classic cult horror movie Black Chrismas.. i may like my snakes, but collecting DVDs is my next favourite hobby.

[lutzd]

Heh! I knew it wasn't really you - it was a joke! You'll get used to (or get used to suffering!) my sense of humour after a while!

[Jwedd]

Doh! sorry, busy day and concentration levels are extremely low im afraid.

[James]

All I do with my Stimson’s is hold a dead pinkie in tweezers shake it a bit wait a few seconds then they strike its so cool.

I might start using a bucket when they get onto bigger prey.

[stretch]

I used to feed Charlotte in her home, and retrieve her for handing with a hook. It worked out well.

With Cleo, I remove her and pop her into a creepy critter container with the food. She never takes long to eat if she is hungry.

The huge fuzzy I gave her on the 14th must really be doing her well. She is totally not interested. This is her longest break between feeds so far (and she shed too) and I have wasted a few fuzzies giving her a go.
My dog did not mind so much...he got the fuzzies!

[Jwedd]

I use a feeding schedule of every 11-days, which just happens to flow down from what the breeder did, so rather than upset the schedule i adopted it

[almaron]

And here I thought I was the only one that that fed my dog mice that my snakes didn't eat.

I just can't resist because he gets soooooo excited whenever I do anything around the mice or rats. You can tell he's just dying to chomp one. Funny story about that actually.

My daughter who is six years old used to get really upset when she knew I was feeding the snakes. She would hassle me about it to no end. "Those poor, helpless little mice" she would cry. Then one night I'm working on the computer, and I hear all kinds of commotion going on in the next room. Turns out my daughter and son (4 years old) had gotten a mouse, and set him loose for the cat to eat. Between the dog and the cat, they were tearing up the place. Took me about 5 minutes of chaos to catch the poor thing. He was pretty tore up, and shaking like crazy from fear. I had to kill him cause he wasn't going to make it.

When I ask my daughter what the heck she was thinking, she told me "But daddy, Mojo (the cat) is such a good boy. He deserves a mouse." I was stunned. She just refused to see that what she did was worse that me quickly killing a mouse and feeding the snake. Oh well. Kids! On the bright side, she doesn't give me a hard time much anymore when I feed the snakes.

[saikrett]

i hear ya almaron
i feed the BT the baby mice that the snake doesn't touch

[Alexahnder]

i feed the shyer childrens in their enclosure, and the other one out of it

[dan_lizard]

I just like to feed the shy children to the snakes.....

<Just Kidding!>

[Alexahnder]