Hello, I'm Danielle.
I am gonna show you how I feed snakes here at the store to help you out if you just got
a new snake at home.
All right, so right now, I'm gonna be starting with my frozen/thawed feeders.
This is really helpful when you want to have, like, a bulk of feeders and you have a really
good snake at home who is cool with eating frozen/thawed food rather than live.
So what I do is get a bin of warm water, let them soak for a little bit depending on the size.
Obviously, a pinky mouse is gonna thaw out quicker than a hopper mouse than a jumbo mouse.
So, pretty much how to make sure that they are fully thawed out is to feel along the whole body.
Make sure there's no cold spots or hard spots.
Make sure it's nice and warm all the way through.
It doesn't have to be like steaming hot.
Do not put them in your microwave.
Don't boil them.
That's just kinda gross.
You can also let them sit at room temperature as well.
That takes a bit longer, so if you want to just set them out on, like, a table next to their tank
for a couple hours, that works as well. This is just a quicker method.
So I like to dry it off so it's not wet.
Most snakes don't really care, but some are kind of particular.
I will grab it by the top just to make sure that the head's close.
And I got my snake right here, and I'm just gonna give it the head.
And then sometimes you're gonna have a snake who's not as easy going as that corn snake was...
that you'll have to do a little bit of wiggling to get their attention.
[Heather] - It worked!
- That was the easiest one he's ever done.
You can keep trying.
Sometimes you'll have to, like, boop around them, like, kind of get them a little, like,
mad, and then they're more...
hyped up, yeah.
More hyped up to eat than just seeing a dead mouse.
I'm just gonna let him sit, and I'll come back to him and try again.
Sometimes they'll pick up on the scent and don't necessarily like me shoving it in their face.
Frozen/thawed, I will leave it with them and come back like 10, 20 minutes later and try again, like,
showing it to them, but after, like, 40 minutes, if they haven't ate, I'm
gonna just say that they won't eat until next week.
I know some people do leave their frozen/thawed prey, like, overnight and that's okay too.
I would never do that with live feeding.
Never leave them unattended.
Whereas, frozen/thawed, there's not really any harm that's gonna come from it.
[Heather] - And this little guy thinks he's a boa!
Well, they don't always have the best aim, so more than likely, you're gonna get bit
more often than if you use some tongs or tweezers.
It's just to keep you a little safe even though snakes don't necessarily have the worst bite,
but it's not fun, and they're also in food mode, they don't really want to let go.
So if he saw food and accidentally got your finger, he's gonna just be holding on to your
finger for a while until he lets go.
Yeah, so when they're in blue, they're about to go into shed, so you'll see that based off
of the eyes and, like, their whole body is gonna look more, like, washed out and dull-looking.
So that means they're about to shed.
Some snakes really don't want to be messed with, eat, do anything besides just
wait for the shed to come off.
Other snakes, like he just showed, do not care.
They will eat. They will do whatever.
I would stay clear of, like, handling them a lot because they might be a little, like,
moody, but beyond that, like, they're just shedding.
Here at the store, we feed in separate bins.
One, because some of our tanks have more than one snake per tank.
At home, I feed in a separate bin than my tank because I like to not have them associate
my hand coming in with feeding time or coming in as, like, them thinking they're getting
a mouse in their tank.
I want it to be...
I grab the snake and put it in the bin, so the bin is associated with food.
Other people disagree with that, so I would say do your own research on what you feel right.
That's just how I do it here at the store and at my house.
And then whenever you're ready to put them up, make sure you give them like 10, 20 minutes,
so that they've swallowed it, it's halfway down their body, you're not gonna upset them
by picking them up.
Be very gentle during this process, so that they don't regurge their food.
So, what we're gonna do is just gently pick them up, make sure we're not squeezing any parts
of their body, and just gently place them back in their tank and they're free to do whatever.
I would wait at least two days before handling them again,
so that they... Sometimes they like to set within their stomachs for a while before
it's fully digested, so just let them be for at least two days after they eat.
So if you feed them on Monday, don't handle them until Wednesday.