What do y'all feed?

[JTrott]

My first post, and thought I would ask a question that I am sure will get some good feedback.

What does everyone feed their balls? Live, F/T, P/K?

Personally, I feed ALL my balls live

2.11, not alot, but enough for me.

Jason

[Adam]

2.11....pythons?? not alot???? thats 13!!

i feed f/t

[JTrott]

2.11....pythons?? not alot???? thats 13!!

i feed f/t

You can never have a lot of Ball Pythons. :D

[Adam]

actually i agree, all normals, any morphs/hets?

[JTrott]

The only "morph" I have is a het albino male. I do have a female on breeding loan with pastel. I just really got serious about the Ball Pythons in July and have a male pastel coming from the female on breeding loan.

Jason

[gmherps]

I feed f/t and live.
Live is fed when the rat isn't big enough to do any harm.

[Schlyne]

I feed f/t with an occasional p/k. I will probably switch over to p/k when I can get everybody on rats and breed up my own snake feeders. I occasionally have a hard time getting the temperature of the mouse hot enough for my bp, and it drives me nuts.

[Apython]

I feed all my ball pythons live, pretty much everybody else get p/k though.

[BallPyFan]

I *try* to feed all f/t, but have one that just simply won't eat if he can't kill it himself. I am less than thrilled about that, as the local rodent supply is unreliable, expensive, and I have no guarantees on the quality. And no, I am not going to raise rodents for one snake!

[SickPyth7]

F/T, but live for my special girls

[JERICO]

F/t Never had to feed live :)

[jay mc]

I feed all mine defrosted rodents, and only rearly have to go for pre killed prey.
Live is just taking to much of a risk and ive seen some horendus bites from live prey!
In the uk its pretty much illegal to use live unless the snake would not eat any other way. That said once our new laws are in place it could be illegal full stop.

[Robilyn]

my big boy bp eats f/t rats, and i'm glad he does, becuase he's got battle scars from an improperly fed live mouse from his previous owners. i also really like the low maintenance requirements of frozen rodents ;-)

[huff747]

I feed both. Some of the animals I got at an older age are hooked on live but I've gotten most of my recent aquisitions to take f/t. The only reason I would prefer f/t is so I don't have to keep so many freaking rodents. I'll clean snake cages no problem but I'm terribly unmotivated to do the same for rodents...

Chris

[N2T]

I usualy feed f/t, have fed p/k on a couple occasions when my shipments didn't come in on time though.

[BPBabe448]

I feed my 2 BP's F/T. I feed my RTB live, because he wont take f/t.

[mjb581]

I always feed live

[Lynn]

Live on young ones and frozen on older ones...We only have about 120 plus balls though..

[T.Exeter]

Depends on what you keep.
If you buy cb, then you can usually get them over to f/t.
However,if you are importing wc to keep,then live is sometimes the only option.
I have 145 balls and only 11 of those are cb.
I originally imported over 350 adult females in 4 seperate cosignments. These were reduced down to 80 by elimination (i.e. they had various things going for them).
54 were purchased individually from photos as cf hatchlings.
11 purchased from breeders in the states. 10 males 1 female.
Rats or mice are not always the answer.
I have several girls who will only take multimamats, and 1 girl who is 900g and will not eat anything other than black hoppers (7 a week), she has held her weight for 11months.
I buy and breed my rodents.
I have some albino boas that i use as dustbins when the rats get too big and these are killed then frozen, to use at a later date.

[SMsnakes]

I try to do pre-killed or F/T !! If possible ALWAYS feed F/T.

But I have 15 that will only eat the live.
I have to baby sit them till they grab and with a very large pair of long nose I make sure the Rats head dose NOT come in contact with the snake. Snap..

[JasonBrennan]

I feed mostly live or prekilled.

[my99zx9r]

I feed live to my balls

[vigilans]

As mentioned above it depends what the snake will take, so some f/t other's live some pre-killed, also some will only take mice and others will take rats.

[larspython]

I have a picky eater that will not eat anything but live and recently wouldn't even eat mice, he loves rats though.

[Thomas Jones]

I feed my Bp's live. I just keep a close eye on them. It is much easier than feeding F/T. Plus I breed my own rats so it saves me more time to feed live.

[dystopia]

i feed my BP F/T. I hear how so many people have problems with it but my BP was on live with the previous owner and I wanted to try F/T first to see if i'd have any problems switching. First meal i did was F/T and just let it thaw for a couple hours, threw it in and s/he hit it instantly. Its been the exact same procedure for every meal for the 2 months i've had s/he.

I dont take it for granted, i do thank the BP gods for my easy going BP.

Jeremy

[jawbone]

F/T. Mine is a 2004 female from Don Hamper and has been a very easy snake to switch. First was live mice, then pk then F/T then F/T rats all in subsequent feedings. Guess I was lucky!

[jimcal]

I feed my bp's live when younger but when they became bigger along with the meals I had one of my females take a bite wasn't that bad got lucky! Now it's pre-kill only.

[TommyD.]

The majority of my balls eat f/k although some of them eat live. Although some of them will accept f/t but not the majority. Balls are my hardest feeders ever. I have Brms, Madgas. hogs, Corns, Kings, Col. boas, Argen. boa's, Brazil Rainbow boa's, Jungle Carpets, Diamond Pythons, and Balls. But my balls are my problem feeders.

[JERICO]

F/t i'v never fed a bp live before, even ones that where fed live before i got them were converted over to f/t.

Just dont want to take the risk of a bite :|