Frozen Mice or Live – What To Feed Your Snake
A very common question among snake owners, new and old is “What should I feed my snake? Live or Frozen Mice?” A lot of people think that their snake will only eat live food. However making a conversion to frozen rodents is not that difficult, and may be the best thing for your pet.
Using a frozen feeder such as pinky mice, may be a safer alternative to using a live food source. Believe it or not, just because you bought the rodent for use as food for your snake, doesn’t mean that it agrees with your decision. Most mice or rats would prefer to go on leading happy healthy lives, eating cheese and hanging out with their rodent friends. So it should not be a shocker to learn that these live animals will put up a fight when trying to be eaten by your pet corn snake for it’s next meal. These critters may bite or claw your snake, causing injury as they being devoured.
That’s just one scenario. The other is if you have a larger snake that feeds on a larger animal like rats. There are stories of rats that were left alone in a cage with an uninterested snake, and the rats being a tough animal, and voracious eaters, have actually started to eat the snake! If this happens it can cause horrendous injuries to your favorite family member. Some stories have it that rats have chewed all the way to the back bone in some instances. That won’t happen with frozen mice!
If you want to avoid this type of potential issue, using frozen rats or feeders is a much better and safer option. Once your snake is used to eating the frozen rodent, you will find it is also a much simpler solution.
You can buy frozen mice online to save money and buy in bulk. The other option is to head down to your local pet store and purchase a couple weeks supply at a bit of a higher cost. If you have room in the refrigerator, buying in bulk is much nicer. Plus, if you find the right supplier, you can get a guarantee that the mice or rats were harvested fresh, and are disease free. Make sure you get a supplier that individually wraps the feeders before freezing as it makes for an easier preparation at feeding time. With quick shipping and dry ice, your food stock will arrive fresh at your door.
There is probably a much longer debate as to whether should should use live or frozen mice, but hopefully some of the major concerns were covered here.
