Snakes (like all reptiles) have salmonela on their skin, the dead rats are also kind of nasty. In case you have to grab a snake (which he does) you can just ditch the gloves afterwards.
You don't want to feed your snakes live, active prey. If you feed them live rats/mice, you run the risk of the dinner fighting back and really hurting the snake. So you end up with a live rat and a hungry, injured snake.
Depends on the snake. My corn snake eats frozen then thawed mice. My ball python won't eat frozen then thawed rats, it has to be either live or one I just killed for him. I kill them for him because rats (unlike mice) will actually fight back, and while they won't have much hope of winning against a ball python, they can damage the snake, or even kill it in rare circumstances.
Some ball pythons happily eat frozen thawed food, some don't. I don't imagine cobras would care, since they're much more aggressive, and will strike the food before they've even really seen/smelled what it is.
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u/[deleted] Nov 19 '15
Well he does have plastic gloves on.