Varied diet and reptilinks for corns

Hi all,

I have come into herp keeping from the fish keeping world, and I know that in the fish keeping community there is a huge emphasis on providing a varied diet.

I stumbled upon reptilinks trying to find info on providing varied diets to corns and wonder if anyone has any experience or thoughts on them. I am thinking of offering them, alternating between that and adult mice.

This particular brand offers a variety of meat blends as well, does anyone have thoughts on which blend would be best? The meats offered include chicken, frog, rabbit, quail, along with mixtures of the above.

I am aware that it may be a challenge to get my corn to accept this food, but assuming that they do what are your thoughts? Do you think a varied diet would improve the animals quality of life or health?

Thanks k_01:

We worry more about feeding a variety of prey items than the corns do. Since their preferred prey is a rodent, and rodents properly raised have all the nutrients a corn needs, there is no reason to vary the diet. However, some snake keepers like to vary the diet, and there's nothing wrong with that. But keep in mind, if a snake prefers one prey item, like an African Soft Furred rat, it may refuse to eat mice, or any other prey. What I'm saying is if your corn is eating and growing well there's no reason to change anything. I have not used reptilinks for a long time, as I was trying to get hognose snakes on a hunger strike to eat. I also used them on some lizards and they seemed to like them. If you can purchase reptilinks at a reasonable price you may want to just keep feeding them and forget about rodents.

I had excellent results using reptilinks in some of my snakes, but many of mine seemed hesitant to take them, possibly from the texture. Start with a single bag and see how they take to it.

In fish keeping as well as other pets, large companies emphasize using a single food source (flake diets, dog kibble, etc.) over attempts at variety, while the experts tend to know better. In reptiles we see something similar, with pelleted or prepackaged diets being encouraged by the companies that make them while experienced keepers offer their own blends of fresh veggies and live insects and other creepy crawlies of varying species.

That is until you get to snakes, where if it can be convinced to eat mice, it stands to reason that it should. North American ratsnakes DO consume very large numbers of rodents, but I have to wonder how rodent populations differed before settlers first arrived and planted crops in the New World. Do I think a varied diet will make your snake live longer, healthier, or happier? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I doubt you'll notice a difference. There's not enough data to make any conjecture. I have high doubts there's any harm in trying though, so I don't think non-mouse foods should necessarily be discouraged so long as emphasis is on whole prey or at least a balance of muscle, bone, connective tissues, and organs that mimics what they might consume in the wild.

If you have the time, and the inclination, you can make your own reptilink type food. I bought a food grinder at a flea market, and natural sausage casings. I could then use any chicken, beef, or lamb mixed with mice and minerals to inject into the casings. Worked like a charm until I started raising my own mice and feeding them off to the snakes was so much easier.