Thinking about feeding LIVE? Welcome to the Live Pile

[Edbean]

Originally Posted by Artistry Exotics

Sorry for not getting over here sooner. Thanks Katie for posting Ophelia's pictures and a link to my blog.
Ophelia still has a long road ahead of her, but she is healing up well. Our vet is very impressed with the progress she's made in the time that I've had her.
She had three rounds of Ceftazidime injections, and as long as she continues to heal, she hopefully won't need any more. I've been applying Silver Sulfadiazine cream once a day, and twice a week she gets cleaned with Betadine. Her superficial wounds are pretty much all healed up now, and even the deeper wounds have closed up a lot. If some of the deepest wounds are still having trouble closing after another week or so, the vet and I have discussed closing them surgically. I haven't attempted to feed her yet (vet and I thought it would be best to wait), but she's just started shedding, so I'll try to get her to eat a pre-killed rat once she's through. Hopefully she will take a rat (almost all of my other snakes take F/T rats, so it'd be easiest for me since I don't have other frozen feeders "in stock"), but if not, we'll try mice, soft-furs, gerbils.. whatever it takes. One thing is for sure though - she will never see another live rodent again!
Here are some progress pictures taken 1/30/10 two weeks after intake:


For more (as well as the progress pictures at the 1 week mark), please view the "Ophelia update" blog I posted on iHerp here.

how the {Heck} could that happen if you were watching them feed? If you have a pencil for the animal to bite there should be no problem feeding live (as far as bps go, obviously feeding rabbits and stuff can be bad, but what a ridiculous overly-dramatic picture to use for something that was either caused by negligence or stupidity.

	Ball Python The Ball Python (Python regius), also known as the Royal Python, is a ground dwelling snake native to the savannahs and rain forests in western Africa, predominatly the countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

	Frozen/Thawed A rodent or other prey item that is frozen and then thawed to be fed to a reptile or other animal.

[stealthk7gsxr]

Originally Posted by Artistry Exotics

Sorry for not getting over here sooner. Thanks Katie for posting Ophelia's pictures and a link to my blog.
Ophelia still has a long road ahead of her, but she is healing up well. Our vet is very impressed with the progress she's made in the time that I've had her.
She had three rounds of Ceftazidime injections, and as long as she continues to heal, she hopefully won't need any more. I've been applying Silver Sulfadiazine cream once a day, and twice a week she gets cleaned with Betadine. Her superficial wounds are pretty much all healed up now, and even the deeper wounds have closed up a lot. If some of the deepest wounds are still having trouble closing after another week or so, the vet and I have discussed closing them surgically. I haven't attempted to feed her yet (vet and I thought it would be best to wait), but she's just started shedding, so I'll try to get her to eat a pre-killed rat once she's through. Hopefully she will take a rat (almost all of my other snakes take F/T rats, so it'd be easiest for me since I don't have other frozen feeders "in stock"), but if not, we'll try mice, soft-furs, gerbils.. whatever it takes. One thing is for sure though - she will never see another live rodent again!
Here are some progress pictures taken 1/30/10 two weeks after intake:


For more (as well as the progress pictures at the 1 week mark), please view the "Ophelia update" blog I posted on iHerp here.

very happy she is doing well. but im curious as to what exactly happend. if there is a thread of it somewhere could someone link it or just give me a brief rundown. either way is cool.

	Frozen/Thawed A rodent or other prey item that is frozen and then thawed to be fed to a reptile or other animal.

[morti]

Originally Posted by Edbean

If you have a pencil for the animal to bite there should be no problem feeding live

Please enlighten us how that works.

[Rachel SS]

Originally Posted by Edbean

how the {Heck} could that happen if you were watching them feed? If you have a pencil for the animal to bite there should be no problem feeding live (as far as bps go, obviously feeding rabbits and stuff can be bad, but what a ridiculous overly-dramatic picture to use for something that was either caused by negligence or stupidity.

Feeding live is negligent and stupid.

When my blood python is out of shed I will post the scars up and down her body from feeding live extra large rats by the WONDERFUL (sarcasm) person who had her before I.

I also have some scars on my carpet python that were there previous to me owning him and he being fed live

And my Dumeril's

and one of my old red tail boa's I adopted.

	Ball Python The Ball Python (Python regius), also known as the Royal Python, is a ground dwelling snake native to the savannahs and rain forests in western Africa, predominatly the countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

[BlackLava]

wow that bp looks bad, im surprised he survived im very happy to hear that hes healing up though, good work

	Ball Python The Ball Python (Python regius), also known as the Royal Python, is a ground dwelling snake native to the savannahs and rain forests in western Africa, predominatly the countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

[RayRay]

Originally Posted by Edbean

how the {Heck} could that happen if you were watching them feed? If you have a pencil for the animal to bite there should be no problem feeding live (as far as bps go, obviously feeding rabbits and stuff can be bad, but what a ridiculous overly-dramatic picture to use for something that was either caused by negligence or stupidity.

LOL
If I were a rodent and I had the choice of biting a pencil or something that might want to eat me, what would I pick?

	Ball Python The Ball Python (Python regius), also known as the Royal Python, is a ground dwelling snake native to the savannahs and rain forests in western Africa, predominatly the countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

[Katie M]

Originally Posted by Edbean

how the {Heck} could that happen if you were watching them feed? If you have a pencil for the animal to bite there should be no problem feeding live (as far as bps go, obviously feeding rabbits and stuff can be bad, but what a ridiculous overly-dramatic picture to use for something that was either caused by negligence or stupidity.

uummm... did you read the part about where she RESCUED that snake from the people that fed it live? those injuries did not occur at her place, rather, she was able to begin rehabbing the snake AFTER the damage was done. Explain to me how those pictures are "ridiculously overly-dramatic?" Those are the ACTUAL pictures... not made up, not altered, but the ACTUAL pictures...

	Ball Python The Ball Python (Python regius), also known as the Royal Python, is a ground dwelling snake native to the savannahs and rain forests in western Africa, predominatly the countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin.

[Katie M]

Originally Posted by Katie M

I don't actually have her, a good friend does - I forgot to add the link to her blog on iherp - iHerp : Online Husbandry, Community, Tracking, Reptiles, Photos, Tracking, Breeding, Snakes, and More!
I know that Janna is one of us (I need to get her over here!) and does the best she can by all of her snakes

here's the link to the story

[Artistry Exotics]

Katie - thanks for the damage control and answering questions while I was out.

As to what happened, Ophelia's previous owner left a live rat in with her for (IMO *at least*) two days. They called the pet store where I work on the morning of Friday, 1/15, and I finally convinced them to turn the snake over to me and picked her up on the evening of Saturday, 1/16. Totally besides this incident, Ophelia's lack of care from her previous owner is astounding. She weighed 495grams on intake, and is a THREE year old snake. She should be closer to three times that size at her age. This past week I've been helping her shed, and have literally pulled off about five layers of retained shed in some places.

Yes, her injuries are something that happened due to BOTH negligence and ignorance. This was not the result of supervised live feeding - and even supervised live feeding is not safe in my opinion. As I said in the original blog about Ophelia that I posted on iHerp, which Katie has already linked to in this thread twice, the reason I felt the need to share Ophelia's story and graphic pictures is as a lesson. Too often we hear the "urban legends" of live feeding gone wrong, but this is just another reminder that this is a REAL risk that some of us have been unfortunate enough to witness first hand.

Besides, if you think the pictures I posted that you quoted were bad (which were taken two weeks after Ophelia being in my care), go back to the previous page to see the pictures I took on the day I took her in (which Katie posted for me before I joined this forum). She has made incredible progress in the last three and a half weeks in my care.

Thanks for jumping to conclusions.

[stealthk7gsxr]

i was unsure of what exactly happened that what i asked for a breif rundown. but you cant blame some people for jumping to conclusions. people do love their snakes, and those pictures im sure hurt some hearts as it did mine. but obviously she is in better care with you now. and on behalf of anyone you may feel jumped to conclusions i apologize for them and we all thank you for the update. she is doing better so lets all smile

[Sakara]

it SHOULD hurt some hearts... that's the point... If you love your animal then why feed live? Because it's "cool"? If you think that is cool, why don't we throw that person in a great white tank? That would be "cool"... No reason to make an animal suffer, prey or predator... It's about food, not being cool...

[mpgt]

A lot of people do it because they don't know any better. Some still believe snakes can't or won't eat anything else.

[stealthk7gsxr]

i just hope that original owner understands now what they did wrong.

[Katie M]

Originally Posted by stealthk7gsxr

i was unsure of what exactly happened that what i asked for a breif rundown. but you cant blame some people for jumping to conclusions. people do love their snakes, and those pictures im sure hurt some hearts as it did mine. but obviously she is in better care with you now. and on behalf of anyone you may feel jumped to conclusions i apologize for them and we all thank you for the update. she is doing better so lets all smile

no worries - my response was posted more at EdBean than you - I understand the immediate call to arms, so to speak when you see something like this. I'm sure it was all typed in the heat of the moment, yet the story was one page back. Janna is doing a fantastic job by this snake, and I'm proud she calls me a friend As far as the link goes, no worries, quoting myself makes me feel special

Originally Posted by stealthk7gsxr

i just hope that original owner understands now what they did wrong.

Good news (hopefully I'm not speaking for Janna here, but I want to get as much of the story out as possible) is that the owners paid for the veterinary care - they just were unable to take care of the treatments after the fact. So, they lost their snake, and the money it took to make the snake better. Hopefully they'll think twice before getting another snake

[Artistry Exotics]

Originally Posted by stealthk7gsxr

i was unsure of what exactly happened that what i asked for a breif rundown. but you cant blame some people for jumping to conclusions. people do love their snakes, and those pictures im sure hurt some hearts as it did mine. but obviously she is in better care with you now. and on behalf of anyone you may feel jumped to conclusions i apologize for them and we all thank you for the update. she is doing better so lets all smile

Sorry, the anger in my post was not in response to you. These last two days have been really hard on me because of some things in my personal life, and to come on here and read Edbean's reply was enough to sent me over the edge last night.

As for the original owner, I don't know and am not really able to comment. I will say that they finally took the snake to a vet and paid for the initial visit, as Katie mentioned. All expenses since then have been out of my pocket, but such is the nature of running a rescue. I don't regret any of it though, because I do what I do because I love these animals.

[stealthk7gsxr]

[Edbean]

I wasn't criticizing anyone other than the PO of that snake. I just thought it was insane to associate people who life feed and people who obviously don't give a crap about their animal lol. Thanks for rescuing her

[Sakara]

so you are saying it's ok to feed live as long as the rodent doesn't tear up the snake that bad? a couple little bites are ok? I dunno what size your animal(s) is/are eating now, or what size rodent you are using, but rats are not stupid. they are not going to bite a pencil. the are going to bite what is hurting them. and they will fight to get to that to the death. so even if it doesn't do that much damage, even one bite on any of my snakes is too many. I dunno if you have ever been bitten by a rat, but check out their teeth next time. they are LONG and SHARP. maybe you should take a hit and see how the snakes feel with just one bite.

/rant

[Katie M]

I'm of the opinion that there are so many alternatives to feeding live, and tricks for converting off of live, that it IS irresponsible to feed live... I don't have a single snake in my collection that I was unable to convert to f/t or p/k. It takes patience, and you have to be more stubborn than the snake. I do get the whole "but I want to watch them kill, etc..." - um... my snakes STILL wrap and "kill" their frodents... so I can't see any reason to feed live when even a "responsible live feeder" can miss a bite that can happen in less than a second

	Frozen/Thawed A rodent or other prey item that is frozen and then thawed to be fed to a reptile or other animal.

[Edbean]

Originally Posted by Sakara

so you are saying it's ok to feed live as long as the rodent doesn't tear up the snake that bad? a couple little bites are ok? I dunno what size your animal(s) is/are eating now, or what size rodent you are using, but rats are not stupid. they are not going to bite a pencil. the are going to bite what is hurting them. and they will fight to get to that to the death. so even if it doesn't do that much damage, even one bite on any of my snakes is too many. I dunno if you have ever been bitten by a rat, but check out their teeth next time. they are LONG and SHARP. maybe you should take a hit and see how the snakes feel with just one bite.

/rant

No... But sweet job taking what I said out of context. I have a bp I feed large mice. Never had a problem. Obviously if you're talking about feeding huge animals like large rats then yes. But these are wild animals that have been doing this for millions of years.

And ya I've been bit so thanks for the suggestion.

/rant

	Ball Python The Ball Python (Python regius), also known as the Royal Python, is a ground dwelling snake native to the savannahs and rain forests in western Africa, predominatly the countries of Ghana, Togo, and Benin.