Whats a forum without a Live vs Frozen thawed thread..lol

I breed my own rodents and feed all my balls live small rats. :SAMHAIN::SAMHAIN:

Fozen just seems to be very wasteful not to mention how hard it is getting a large number of balls eating frozen prey..

All the balls eat live, most of the rest readily take FT except for the occasional pain in the asses.

Yea,my balls eat live too. When I had only a few F/T was fine. But its too time consuming to get them to eat F/T when you start growing the collection. I also hated defrosting them and having some left over because they all wouldn't eat them. I feed my blood F/T he eats like he hasn't seen food in months.lol. Bigger snakes that require larger food I would feed F/T just for the fact that bigger prey items have better defenses than a mouse or a small rat.

95% of the collection here eats F/T.......... I do have a few that eat live. But in my case it seems easier to just grab the bags and thaw them out. If something doesn't eat I always have something that will. I feed in two to three day spurts.

If it's simply a matter of live vs. f.t then you do whatever works for you and your snakes -- end of discussion.

My personal preference is f.t hands down.

Total time it takes me to pull out feeders, defrost and heat up is roughly 15 minutes. That's feeders for over 100 snakes. How long does it take to drive to your nearest pet store to pick up a feeder or how much time do you spend in the rat barn a week? I'm guessing more than that.

My snakes all feed aggressively on their f.t. and left overs are an extreme rarity - usually males during breeding season and there is always someone that will eat a left over if need be.

I do think a lot of people don't realize how easy it is to get a collection switched to f.t. and once the snakes pick up the rhythm it really isn't any different than feeding them live. You just open the cage dodge the snake flying out at you and drop in the rat.

Snakes dodging out at you..... Yeah that is fun fun...... Some with mouth wide open...

100% f/t right now i dont have time to take care of live rodents

F/T for me the availability of live here sucks and I don't want to breed rodents right now, Although I may in the future.

I feed all of the balls live, and the boas f/t.

F/T for me the availability of live here sucks and I don't want to breed rodents right now, Although I may in the future.

Breeding is not too bad. I would rather buy, but I figure each rat saves me a buck. At fifty rats a week it could add up quick.

convenience of f/t (and cost savings over live) can't be beat.
i spend time in the snake room almost every night anyway. so i'll defrost a bunch of rats at a time instead of trying to feed 'em all on a schedule. the defrosting rat smell lights up the hungry ones, you almost always have an idea who's likely to eat.
works for me, i may have thrown out 3-4 rodents this year, but it's pretty rare that i do. someone usually has room for another.
all my critters eat f/t.
ck

I much prefer F/T. Most of the BPs are taking live but I'll switch over what I can to F/t. I don't mind the defrosting even tho I now have to use a 5 gallon bucket for the thawing and humping feeders to the snake house now. The time it takes to thaw isn't even an issue for me since I start thawing while I'm taking care of other things. I like the F/T because .....

1) I almost always have the exact size I need.
2) I can leave a freezer full of F/T in any cage and none try to bite my snakes.
3) I can go slightly larger if I choose to.
4) I don't have feed or change bedding for any rat in the freezer.

I would love to raise my own rodents and feed live but unfortunately space is an issue for me. I simply don't have any space for a rat colony and I honestly don't want that smell in my house.

Frozen thawed has worked great for me but you really need some snakes that are garbage disposals. People say that you can re-freeze and use them again but I prefer to just feed them off to something else. I bought a little freezer for my herp room and I can store more feeders than I will ever need in that small space. I think buying frozen is cheaper than buying live. But, raising your own is cheaper than buying frozen. Small rats from rodent pro are 99 cents each. If you have 50 ball pythons that is $200 a month if you only feed once a week. Would it cost $200 a month to run a rat colony that size?

All my BP's get live...Everything else - Borneos, Womas, JCP's and Boas either get P/K or F/T...

I would love to raise my own rodents and feed live but unfortunately space is an issue for me. I simply don't have any space for a rat colony and I honestly don't want that smell in my house.

Frozen thawed has worked great for me but you really need some snakes that are garbage disposals. People say that you can re-freeze and use them again but I prefer to just feed them off to something else. I bought a little freezer for my herp room and I can store more feeders than I will ever need in that small space. I think buying frozen is cheaper than buying live. But, raising your own is cheaper than buying frozen. Small rats from rodent pro are 99 cents each. If you have 50 ball pythons that is $200 a month if you only feed once a week. Would it cost $200 a month to run a rat colony that size?

I have around fifty balls, and raise my own rodents. It cost me around 35-50 bucks (sorry I have never really priced it out) to raise my rodents each month. So I am saving at least 150 bucks each month.

I keep mine in the garage, and with weekly cleaning they do not smell too bad.

Out of my 27 snakes, 19 of them feed on FT rats and mice. The others haven't switched over yet to FT. However, I am deciding to start breeding rats to meet my own demands. It will be cheaper than anything I have available around here.

I prefer to feed live, but its just so much cheaper and less dang work to feed F/T. I have one ancient ball python who has decided he wants nothing but hamsters, btu everything thing else gets their food straight from RodentPro.

I feed F/T to 9 of my 12 snakes, the other 3 will not make the switch. For me it's convenience, driving to the snake store after work, fighting traffic is just a pain in the ass. Like others have said I feed my F/T eaters over a span of 2 days just in case I have some that don't eat, that really cuts down on any waste.

Having primarily boas must be spoiling me. All this talk of some not eating is so rare here , that I can't remember the last time something didn't eat outside of 1 picky BP.

I feed FT and all of my snakes eat FT without any issues.

a rat colony in my garage where i live, i'd have every mange-ridden stray fleabag cat in the 'hood camped out at the door.
simply not an option for me, but i did enjoy the visual.
ck

I cant say that F/T is cheaper than raising your own. At least not when your collection starts to get kinda big. And having he exact size I need on hand at all times is a convenience I cant live without.

Not to mention selling off my overstock puts a couple extra grand in my pocket every year. Which more than makes up for the cost of bedding and food for the year.

Most of my Balls eat live. My corns and Carpets eat frozen.

I find it much easier to feed my balls f/t. I only feed live to all my new 08's. I'm sure I'll be able to switch them over very shortly as well.

I feed live I have tried F/T but didnt work out so well. Wasted a bunch of money on rats that didnt get ate. They ended up going to the local pet shop for half what I paid for them. I raise my own rodents not that big of a deal. They are in another building so dont worry about the smell. Breeding rodents makes it alot easier for me to make sure I have what I need when I need it. When I was breeding corns they would eat anything. Then I fed alot of F/T.

I have always fed live until I moved to Tennessee. Now I am feeding F/T and hate it. I can not wait to get my Rats setup. I dont mind feed f/t to corns and f/t pink's to the baby corns. The Balls just dont respond as well to the f/t and some just wont touch them. The nearest pet shop is 12 mile's down the road.

Richard

I have some fairly young baby BPs this year. On the second meal for one its already on P/K and 3rd meal for the other was P/K. It seems to be easier to get BPs on f/t when young compared to when they're older.

I use both frozen thawed or fresh killed here in Canada i also breed my own feeders and have been doing so for over 25 years of reptile breeding i use live food for all the baby snakes as i find it easier to get that first feeding response. i live on a half acre so the smell don't matter. Living where the local pet store barely has any feeders i have to raise my own.

I feed ft with no issues but I have one burm who will not eat ft only fresh killed which is odd any tricks anybody has cause i'd really like to get him eating ft to.