Purina Alpo puppy dry pellets has red dye or not?

Hi. I live in Hong Kong and keep a ball python that is several months old. I am not into breeding mice as of yet, but since my snake has outgrown the mice that is commonly sold as feeders here (medium mice), I had resorted to buying several mice and fattening them up for a week before feeding. I started doing this this past week.

I tried buying rats but they are not easily available and the only ones available were also the same size as the medium mice at the time.

I had thus bought 2 medium mice and 1 small rat, kept in separate boxes. I fed them scraps for the first day. Since saturday afternoon, I had listened to advice from a friend and started feeding them Purina ALPO puppy dry pellets. It is the version available here and is made in Australia, with various languages writing on it. This is the product photo:

I then read about horror stories of dog food with red dye, which is poisonous to snakes. I figured I'd read the label and know if it has red dye, but all it says is that is has "food coloring". I have searched extensively all day online to see if this brand/product has red dye but to no avail. The food is a mix of different colors mostly browns with some white pieces, nothing really red like Whiskas cat food or anything but I understand this is not reliable. I tried soaking the food and smearing it on wet toilet paper to see if it has red residue but nothing.

Now I am very worried and don't know if I should throw away all the mice and rat and get new ones. It would be a pity to do so, especially since I am not even sure if the dog food had dye. They were fed this purina ALPO puppy thing since saturday afternoon at about 1 pm, until sunday night about 9pm (note the time difference as I am in Hong Kong), and the three of them combined ate about 2 handfuls.

If this red dye was indeed present in the purina dog food, will my snake die from eating one or two meals or these mice? Or is it a long term buildup thing? I have since switched the mice to a diet of mixed alfalfa pellets and oatmeal. Will keeping them longer allow any dye to clear out of the system? If so how long?

Please help.

By the way I am sorry that this isn't for feeding a corn snake, but I have searched and searched for help and just trying my luck everywhere. Since it is still related to snakes and is about feeder mice/rats, I hope it will be allowed here.

I'm just wondering.....how does your ball python like eating dog food!

Ball pythons do not eat dog food. I am sorry if my question sounds stupid, but I am sure everyone makes a mistake or two when they first start something new. I don't know if your question was meant to point out how stupid what I did was or not, but if so there is no need for that, I know already. I'd appreciate if someone can chime in about whether those rats are now not safe to feed to the snake.

Like I said, I have switched the mice to oatmeal and alfalfa pellets.

Well lets see. When the dog food is digested it should be fine. But my biggest piece of advice to you. Go buy some proper mouseand rat food. Dog food is not an appropriate staple food diet for any rodent.

if it has multiple colors of food in the bag, then it is safe to assume that it has red dye. that does not mean that a bag of monocolor food is safe by any means. I would however, not worry about feeding a snake a few mice that had eaten red dye for only a couple weeks. you should see no adverse affects. red dye poisoning is more of a long term build up kind of deal.

I feed my feeder mice - Mazuri Rodent Breeder oval pellets. It's about $18.00 a 50 pound bag.

Here is the description on the bag: A diet designed for feeding rats and mice which are maintained in breeding colonies and intended for use as food for other species (such as reptiles).

Website http://www.mazuri.com/

They also sell products in smaller bags.

Well thanks for the replies.

mike17l said:

if it has multiple colors of food in the bag, then it is safe to assume that it has red dye.

Click to expand...

It was a variety of different shade browns and white pellets... anyway I am not going to use it anymore.

mike17l said:

I would however, not worry about feeding a snake a few mice that had eaten red dye for only a couple weeks. you should see no adverse affects. red dye poisoning is more of a long term build up kind of deal.

Click to expand...

So given you say that it would be ok for them to have been fed red dye for 2 weeks and still be ok to feed, and that my mice were only fed that food for less than 2 DAYS, I guess it should be ok. However, does it matter since I have 3 rats, for me to feed them to the snake over 3 weeks? They are of course now no longer eating the dog food, only oatmeal and alfalfa. Would the red dye have cleared out of their system by a week later pretty much or would feeding one of these a week for 3 weeks still constitute long term thing?

mike17l said:

I would however, not worry about feeding a snake a few mice that had eaten red dye for only a couple weeks. you should see no adverse affects. red dye poisoning is more of a long term build up kind of deal.

Click to expand...

Oh yes, by couple weeks, are you referring to feeding the SNAKE for a couple weeks on mice that had been fed on small amounts of red dye? Or feeding the snake MICE that had eated red dye for a couple of weeks?

Why not read the bag. If you can not read the bag then the answer is YES.

Fatman608 said:

Why not read the bag. If you can not read the bag then the answer is YES.

Click to expand...

I DID read the bag. As I said above it only says "food coloring". Didn't list the color.

Did you even read my post?

The person said they were no longer going to use the dog food. I hope that means they are looking into appropriate rodent food. It may not be simple to find over there, especially if there is any kind of language barrier. Let's hope for the best.

Baba-Lou said:

Well lets see. When the dog food is digested it should be fine. But my biggest piece of advice to you. Go buy some proper mouseand rat food. Dog food is not an appropriate staple food diet for any rodent.

Click to expand...

Most commercial dog food isn't even appropriate for dogs :nope:

That said, I had my rats on dog food for awhile and after switching to "gourmet" rodent mix that my local pet store supplies they don't look any less healthy but their production rate has definitely dropped. :shrugs:

True dog food has more protien then commercial rodent feed. But like I said. "Dog food is not an appropriate staple food diet for any rodent." That being said Yes a rodent can eat the dog food. just not everyday. My mice and rats are supplemented with Science Diet light ever 3-4 days. Namely as a treat.

GiantBlueberry said:

That said, I had my rats on dog food for awhile and after switching to "gourmet" rodent mix that my local pet store supplies they don't look any less healthy but their production rate has definitely dropped. :shrugs:

Click to expand...

Seed mixes kind of suck for most rodents, especially breeding ones. Seeds have a lot of fat and not enough protein to sustain a breeding colony, from what I have seen and heard. Lab blocks are the way to go, IMO!