![]() There are instances where a snake doesn’t immediately take to eating things that have been pre-killed for it. What If My Snake Doesn’t Like Already-Dead Food? Herpetological specialists are rare, and their offices may have limited hours. And many vets are untrained in reptile care, and will be able to do little to help your injured friend - especially if you’re going to an emergency clinic or the like. Vet bills for reptiles get expensive quickly - since they’re an “exotic” pet, even walking in to the vet’s office or emergency clinic with them can be a $100 appointment fee, before any tests/surgeries/medicines/etc even enter the picture. A snake that misses on the first strike, or gets a bad grip on its prey, can be severely bitten (even killed) by a cornered, fighting-for-its-life rodent. Rodents have long, sharp teeth that can seriously injure your beloved snake-friend. The biggest risk with live prey, of course, is that it might fight back. Live prey items might also carry parasites picked up at the store (or elsewhere), which freezing will kill off - live prey items are a potential source of mite infestations, for example, or may contain parasites in their guts. Many shops that carry reptile products do offer live prey items as an option, but any argument that a live mouse is somehow “healthier” or contains “more nutritional value” than a frozen one is purely specious - if anything, the frozen prey will be healthier, because pet stores often don’t have very good housing conditions for their prey items, don’t properly feed them, and don’t monitor for health problems the way that a dedicated rodent production facility has to do. Perhaps a frozen/thawed mouse is a bit unnatural, but it’s certainly no more unnatural than feeding kibbles or canned food to your cat or dog. ![]() Snakes in the wild rarely live for more than a few years, while in captivity they can live for decades. Most snakes in the pet trade were captive-bred - they’ve spent their lives living in “unnatural” conditions - and many were selectively bred for traits that would get them killed in the wild (ie, albinism). I find such arguments to be patently ridiculous, because there’s really nothing “natural” about keeping a snake in a glass enclosure in your home. There are people who make the argument that live prey is more “natural”, because a snake in the wild has to stalk and kill its prey. So Why Frozen/Thawed Instead of Live Prey? ![]() And my snakes get a good meal whenever they need it, without me having to trek across town to the pet store, or worry about keeping live rodents in my apartment. I can then thaw the prey items out, one at a time, much like you’d thaw out a chicken breast before cooking it. Most people are a bit surprised when I tell them that I simply buy frozen mice or rats, usually in bulk (packages of 12 or 24) so that I don’t need to worry about going to the pet store every single week. And many people reveal during these conversations that the only reason they’d never looked seriously into getting a snake as a pet was because of a fear of (or simple distaste for) the idea of feeding live prey. One of the first questions that comes up whenever I tell people that I have pet snakes is inevitably, “what do you feed them?” People are incredibly curious about how snakes eat, what they eat, and where you get such things.
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