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Firstly, I just looked up his account and he is not banned. The thread was closed due to repetitive and useless arguments that are already preexisting.
The bottom line is that there is no "safe" way to feed live prey rodents. There are things you can do to minimize the risk, but absolutely nothing you can do to eliminate the risk. People often say that they watch closely. That may reduce the risk of repeated bites from the rodent. But it is useless for sudden trauma because noone can move fast enough to stop such an event. An important thing to remember is that some of us have seen how quickly the damage can be done first hand. I watched as a mouse severed the spine of a Pygmy Rattlesnake in a single bite. No warning. No time to react. It was done in the blink of an eye. I also witnessed a large rat kill a 5' Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake with a lucky bite to the brain. Again, no way to stop it.
So while there may be ways to lessen the risk of feeding live, it cannot be eliminated. This is why F/T or P/K is recommended. When done properly, they eliminate the risk all together. And there are virtually no snakes (that naturally take rodent prey) that cannot be switched to f/t. This is particularly true of the common snakes such as Ball Pythons, Boas, Burms, Kings, Ratsnakes, etc. There are obscure species that may take some work, but 99.99% can be switched over. So there is really no reason not to use F/T, while there is much evidence showing the potential health concerns (parasites, etc) and risk of physical trauma of feeding live rodents.
I will qualify all of that with the fact that when i refer to live rodent prey, I am referring to prey large enough to be able to bite. This does not include rat/mouse pinkies or fuzzies.
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