wild mice OK?

I live on a farm, and we have wild mice pretty much on tap(!)

D'you guys reckon it'd be OK to feed them to my lovely cornsnake?

mistafeesh said:

I live on a farm, and we have wild mice pretty much on tap(!)

D'you guys reckon it'd be OK to feed them to my lovely cornsnake?

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Most keepers will advise against this. Wild prey items may harbor parasites that can be transmitted to your snake(s).

Roy Munson said:

Most keepers will advise against this. Wild prey items may harbor parasites that can be transmitted to your snake(s).

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I totally agree (Again Dean). While they could be treated it would be a lot easier, cheaper and faster to just buy either live or frozen mice, not to mention safer for the snake, although I would highly recommend feeding frozen thawed (F/T) whenever possible.

i have used wild rats to feed boas before, and it wasnt good. they were dead first, but i usually froze them for a week or so before i fed them. one time i had a fresh one and the snake was hungry so i tossed it in fresh, well two weeks later i had one of the worst mite infestations ever. my advice is either buy FT or at least kill and freeze the wild mice for a week or more.
mike

Good point....
there is also the possibility of catching a wild mouse with poison in its system.

Domestic feeders are never subjected to parasites or toxins or anything else that might harm your pet. And definately go with f/t if you can, most experianced herpers do.

I dont think you guys realise that snakes eat wild mice? It's not like every snake in the world has mites.

Snakes in the wild eat what is available to them-wild mice. They don't have someone to make them a nice clean mousicle. That doesn't mean its the best they could get.
Feral cats will eat anything they find, but my house cats are fed Fancy Feast and Iams. I know what is in them and it won't make them ill. IMO don't our pet snakes deserve the same consideration?

Jared said:

I dont think you guys realise that snakes eat wild mice? It's not like every snake in the world has mites.

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Thanks for the tip professor. They also suffer high mortality rates from basking on busy roadways, from predators, and from parasite infestations. I keep my pet snakes away from asphalt, hawks, and filthy, wild vermin. But you go ahead and do things your way.

Roy Munson said:

Thanks for the tip professor. They also suffer high mortality rates from basking on busy roadways, from predators, and from parasite infestations. I keep my pet snakes away from asphalt, hawks, and filthy, wild vermin. But you go ahead and do things your way.

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Well said Roy, just wish that i could give you some more rep points right now but i can't. maybe i will remember a little later down the road.

I dont think you guys realise that snakes eat wild mice? It's not like every snake in the world has mites.

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Snakes may not, but I've seen my fair share of wild mice dead in a mousetrap with worms poking out of their butts. When the blood stops flowing, the worms usually vacate the premises.

Wild snakes don't have an alternative choice about what they eat. I give my captive snakes a healthy alternative to what's running around outside..the mice I raise myself.

Thanks guys. So, then, keeping the mice alive for a couple of days to check if they've been poisoned, then freezing them for a month should probably do the trick... I was initially planning on breeding mice to feed the snake from, but they're really hard to buy still living where I live!!!

Mistafeesh, everyone's been telling you they wouldn't feed wild mice to their snake, yet you still want to do it? If your snakes will eat frozen you can order some online. Wild mice can build up a resistance to toxins that can still harm your snake even if it doesn't kill the mouse. Why risk your snakes' health? I'd leave those wild mice to the wild snakes!

I actualy have a buddy whoes in the same situation. What he did was got 2 of the mice that lives near his farm, and bread them ( since toxins don't carry down the line) and fed the bred mice to his snake. He ended up putting up traps all over his farm, and begun a hugh mice bredding place on his farm, and sell to the locals. He lives near Hamilton, Ontario.
Anyways, I guess the point of this story is, not to feed your snake actual wild mice, but breed the wild ones and feed your snakes it's offspring. :flames:

if you live in an are where you know there is no chance of the mice coming in contact with poisons then after at least a week of freezing it would probably be ok for the snake to eat, but if there is a chance for the mouse to have come in contact with any poison, i would not even consider using it for snake food.

I was thinking of doing what Barret was suggesting too. Breeding the mice and using their offspring. I hadn't thought of the fact that mice could build up a resistance to the toxins, to be honest....

As far as I can tell, the two problems that you get from wild mice are:
1: they may have eaten poison
2: they may have diseases that can be passed on to the snake

It seems like freezing them for a good long time eliminates the diseases, but I can't be really sure about the poison. So I guess it's back to the idea of trying to find someone in Cornwall who sells live mice, or failing that, to breed these wild ones to eliminate the possibility of passing on poison to the snake.

Orrrrrrrr
You could just go to Rodentpro and order some healthy frozen ones.......

yeeees, but I want to breed cornsnakes at some point, and it'd be handy to have a mouse colony to feed them on. I'm going off the idea of wild mice a bit now, but I'll keep an eye out for pet mice for sale...

We breed rabbits, keep ducks and chickens and have various other pets. Nothing to stop us using a spare tank to breed mice in....

Yeeees, but you'll still need more than one spare tank. You'll need several.

Freezing wild mice will destroy any pathogens (diseases, parasites, etc.) that the wild mice are carrying. Freezing wild mice will not affect any chemicals, pesticides, or other toxins that the wild mice may have come into contact with or ingested.

As for as breeding wild mice, I would also advise against it, even though you are planning on feeding the offspring to your snake. These offspring are highly likely to carry any pathogens that the parents have. The toxins will not be transmitted, but the parasites can, and more than likely will, transmit to the offspring.

How you ask? Well, baby mice tend to wean for ~21 days. During this time, the baby mice are feeding off of the mother. If the mother is carrying any parasites (ie. ones that are amoebas , which many are), they will be transmitted through the mother's milk to the offspring. Additionally, since the baby mice are going to be inhabiting the same container with at least the mother for ~21 days, any type of contagious pathogen will also be transmitted.

I realize that almost no one will ship live mice, but search around. If you have to, a long drive to pick up some live mice will be a great benefit to your snakes' healthy future and of raising a healthy mice breeding colony.

Another thing to consider is the health and welfare of you and your family (if you have one).

Wild rodents carry all sorts of diseases transmittable to humans, usually through fleas, ticks and urine/feces.

Hanta Virus, Typhus and Bubonic plague to name a few. A close friend of mine died from Typhus after being bit by fleas. He had a rat investation and was cleaning out his garage when he was bit.