• Hello!

    Either you have not registered on this site yet, or you are registered but have not logged in. In either case, you will not be able to use the full functionality of this site until you have registered, and then logged in after your registration has been approved.

    Registration is FREE, so please register so you can participate instead of remaining a lurker....

    Please be certain that the location field is correctly filled out when you register. All registrations that appear to be bogus will be rejected. Which means that if your location field does NOT match the actual location of your registration IP address, then your registration will be rejected.

    Sorry about the strictness of this requirement, but it is necessary to block spammers and scammers at the door as much as possible.

Quick question

I'm no vet, but I can't see how this could affect the snake's health. When I used to buy live from pet stores, I'd request the biggest mice they had. Many of these were giant, over-the-hill breeder males, and many of them were lumpy with tumors. I never had a problem.
 
Well from what I've heard benign tumors won't harm your snakes at all. But then again some say the malignant ones will. Some how I can't find the possibity for snake to eat a mouse with a malignant tumor getting harmd. from it. Just as long as you don't cut it open. well any tumor like that to be exact. but if your worried, either ask yor local vet if it's okay to do so, or be on the safe side and just don't feed them it. But thats just MHO.
 
Baba-Lou said:
Well from what I've heard benign tumors won't harm your snakes at all. But then again some say the malignant ones will. Some how I can't find the possibity for snake to eat a mouse with a malignant tumor getting harmd. from it. Just as long as you don't cut it open. well any tumor like that to be exact. but if your worried, either ask yor local vet if it's okay to do so, or be on the safe side and just don't feed them it. But thats just MHO.

I really do not think that the tumor being benign or malignant should matter in the decision. The key point that plays into your decision should be the cause of the tumor. A tumor can be caused by genetics, environmental factors, or a combination of the two. By environmental factors, I mean an outside source, such as chemicals, pesticides, or other harmful substances, which mutated the rat/mouse's cells to cause the [cancerous] tumor. Yes, the tumor could be solely genetic in its origin, but more than likely something else played a role. For this fact alone, the rat/mouse could have concentrated levels of something harmful in its body. My suggestion is to not feed this prey item to your snake, unless you want to risk the health of your snake. Hope this helps.
 
I figured I would just err on the side of caution and not feed the rat to any snakes. I just wanted to see if anyone had any input on the subject. I can rule out pestcides and chemicals and what not as a cause. I didn't get the rat at a pet store, it was born here. I breed rats, and none of my other rats have had tumors, and I am very careful about not using any chemicals in my room and am very careful about any chemicals used in our apartment in general. This one was actually a hold back that was supposed to be a pet for my roommate's sister, but not anymore. I have no shortage of rats so I don't need to feed this girl to anything, I was just curious.
 
Back
Top