It's feeding time!

Hydro eating a mouse

Oh yes, tonight is the night that all of our carnivorous animals look forward to…feeding time! Unlike our herbivorous animals, our carnivores do not get fed everyday. Instead, they are each on individual feeding schedules to meet their dietary requirements. Our smaller snakes get fed every 8-10 days and the larger pythons get fed once a month. Our rats, mice, and chicks get shipped to us pre-killed. They are kept in a special freezer until we need to use them. The day before a feeding, I thaw out the prey in a white tray in our refrigerator. Once they are thawed I put them under special heat lamps to “warm them up.” This helps trigger the animal’s feeding response. I then separate the animals being fed in a feeding enclosure for safety and use tongs to feed each individual their prey. Once eaten it’s recorded. All I can say is “Bona Appetite”!