How do I feed my snake correctly? Is this a good way..?

My step-brother just recently took in a snake, but I highly doubt he will take care of it, so I’ve been taking it upon myself to feed it and everything. It is a green snake, I’m not sure whether rough or smooth, and it eats every 4–5 days. I read that you shouldn’t feed the snake in it’s cage because then every time you open the cage it will be expecting food. So I though I could get a separate smaller cage to put it in to eat. And then you also need to gut-load the crickets before feeding them to the snake to provide the necessary nutrients, so I thought I could put the crickets in the smaller cage a few days before feeding time so I could gut-load them and then put the snake in when it’s time to eat.
Does this sound like a good plan? Or what do you do with your snake?