Oh, I know feeding live and dead prey are both common with snake owners. I’m a dog/fish person myself, but I follow a few snake people on youtube. I also know some snakes are picky AF and refuse pre-killed prey. I was worried about the comfort of both the kitten and the snake–a live kitten might struggle and hurt the snake. And I don’t know if the kitten had any parasites it could pass on–I’ve seen warnings about not feeding wild mice to pet snakes for similar reasons.

Edit: or maybe the ailing kittens had been poisoned. We just don’t know.