are you still feeding your snake mice & rats ???

Vinman,
You ask everyone to read your posts, I ask for the same respect from you. It is very apparent that you did not 'read' my post since you think I am a narrow minded teacher that doesn't respect his colleagues. If you 'read' my post you would notice that I stated that I feel I have more experience as a 9 year teacher who uses innovative ideas and techniques in the classroom, tries new things, gives new opportunities for experiences and learning, and finds new information to share. Compared to a teacher that has taught the same thing day in and day out, same lesson plans from 30 years ago . . . the reality is that teacher has not taught for 30 years, they have taught for 1 year, the same thing again and again for thirty years. If you feel I'm not respecting my colleagues, so be it, but my colleagues in this position aren't respecting their students.

As for the information concerning your feeding methods, I've stated my opinion on it and believe it is extremely important for ALL the information to be laid out on the table in order for newcomers to the hobby to make an educated and informed decision for themselves. (Does the chicken neck have intestines and lungs and brains and gut load and kidneys and so on?) How many newcomers to the hobby ask about feeding their hatchlings crickets, sure some may eat them, but it's definitely not a good idea. I don't want someone coming along and saying 'hey, time to feed my snake chicken cause that's the new thing' only to find out 5, 10, 15 years down the road we have some messed up snakes. I hope it's successful for you in that respects. Good Luck.

BTW, where is your source concerning the gerbil spines? I would really love to read that information as I have always been curious as to why gerbils are not recommended as a food source, yet I know darn well as a rodent they are a prey item in nature.

Have a nice day.
D80

PS. Call me a wussy that hides behind a fake hame if you want. In today's world, with today's criminals, I prefer to protect my identity. You can't change my own self-worth with your petty comments.

I do know a lady personally who has a 30 year old Burmese Python. She has had this snake all its life, she got it as a very little baby in 1975. She fed it mice when it was a baby but as it grew she switched to Raw Turkey Legs and that is all shes ever fed it since..And well its 30years old what can I say...

Ive often wondered about feeding something other than mice/rats...We make commercial dog, cat food thats cooked to death and most of our dogs and cats fare quite well.Not to mention those bagged processed feed for cows,pigs,rabbits, monkeys, etc.....Dragon pellets are not natural and also cooked but my beardies are quite healthy(though I do vary thier diet)...So its just a matter of time till someone comes up with an adequate processed diet for snakes..
It takes someone to make the first steps and take the risks..Its unfortunate that sometime the animals have to suffer, but if special care is taken it can be done humanely.

I just noticed this thread, but since I actually have experience in this matter, I would like to contribute too.

Back in the '70s (yeah, I am pretty old, lol!), we had a traveling reptile exhibit called The Living Jungle. We went around the US and set up at malls or sometimes fairs and took donations or admissions. It was a fun and educational experience for young, inexperienced herp enthusiasts to do, and we got to meet the pioneers of the time, such as Bob Applegate, Ernie Wagner, etc.

But one of our problems was getting rodents while on the road. Sometimes there was a herp society or pet shop to help supply them, sometimes not. So we went to the grocery store and bought chicken necks, gizzards, and hearts (never tried turkey, pork, or livers). We fed those items, raw, to various ratsnakes, rattlesnakes, old world vipers, cobras, kingsnakes, and pretty much everything in the exhibit. I can't specifically remember anything refusing them when we had nothing else to offer. We were on the road for about 4 or 5 years and used chicken parts off and on for much of that time. I never noticed any problems that I feel were caused by that diet. However, we only fed the chicken parts when we couldn't get any rodents, so I would guess it might have been about 1/3 - 1/2 of the total feedings. I intuitively felt (there was not a wealth of easily accessed information then as there is now!) that this diet would not be the same as complete animals, so limited it to when we could not find whole rodents.

That pretty much sums up my experience with the subject. Once we stopped the travel and settled down, we found sources of rodents and haven't used parts in many years.

I am all for trying new things (practically everything was a new idea in herpetoculture back when we first started, lol!). I tend to try new things cautiously, maybe with just a few animals, or animals that are having problems that I feel can only get better with an experimental treatment. I am especially grateful to people like Connie Hurley, who seem to be organized enough to do experiments that actually have a control group, with results good enough to be more than just anecdotal evidence, which is still better than nothing, and is what I mainly have to offer.

I realize that corns are very opportunistic feeders in the wild. So, would chicken parts be a good way to get a feeding response out of a hatchling that refuses to eat? I realize that this method may not be as nutritious as mice, but it could help for those hatchlings that just don't get what they're supposed to do with food.

I personally have a near breeder-sized anery mot that very nearly starved to death as a hatchling. She would not (and still won't) touch mice, they repulse her. She got started on pieces of day-old chick thigh (with bone included). She moved up to rat parts scented with chicken, and eventually got big enough to eat half rat pinks. She hasn't looked back. Although she grew quite slowly on the chick thighs, it did allow me to get her big enough to consider taking rat parts and eventually unscented rats. Now she will scarf anything placed in with her...except mice. LOL

When trying to get picky feeders started, you have to be flexible. What works for one almost certainly won't work for the next one...at least in my house. LOL Lizard, Chick, Quail, Wild Mouse Scenting, Gerbil, Hamster...you try to find something to get the little ones interested. As they age, they tend to get less picky, so getting them up to size as quickly as possible is usually my goal in converting them.

Well, I'm guessing that everyone has their own stories. Me, I pay VERY little to feed my snakes actually. I don' tknow who else does this but I go to the local rabbit breeders and get the baby rabbits that don't make it or are deformed. You wouldn't believe just how many are lost. So they freeze all their babies for me. A friend raises rats and she freezes the feeders for me. Also when the 4-H kids get their chicks, I get all the dead baby chicks. I've fed my corns baby rabbits <which are the perfect shape and size for feeding> chicken chicks, guinea fowl chicks, rats, mice, guinea pig babies. Much of what I get is for free and well after that particular diet last year, I had babies hatch out at nine inches long. I find that a varied diet so far can be beneficial. But I am leery about feeding large chicken parts. Probably because I caught salmonella from it myself. Not fun. I also don't know what the chickens have been fed. What hormones that are approved for human consumption and not for reptiles. I know what its like to be poor and have to raise snakes but I think I've done pretty good for myself. I don't feed just baby rabbits, and I try to rotate what type of critter is fed. ONe thing I didn't notice being mentioned is what you do for 'fiber' vinman? I've always thought that the fur on the rodents helps clean the gut of the animals.

I haven't bought a single mouse or rat for almost 2 years.

Seems I know this great rodent factory that loves to swap mice for snakes. I keep them supplied in snakes and vice versa. I just have to make sure I keep ahead of them or I won't have anything they can't make themselves!

Originally Posted by Clint Boyer

I haven't bought a single mouse or rat for almost 2 years.

I assumed you just bred your own mice/rats...

Edited for lack of reading skills. lol

Drizz you were harsh with me I got harsh with you so let call even and start new . lets have some respect for each other Cool ? I did not call you a wussy I was refring to the fact I list all my contact info and dont remaine anonymous. If anybody has a problem with me wether it's my mouth or someone feel they got a bad deal they know how to find me. you try new things in the class room I try new things with my herps. I read your post up and down 6 times. I read every post that is on this thred L.O.L Vinny Ritchie

The big thing I worry about Vinman is that you, knowing you goofed off in school and aren't very literate, haven't taken the time to try to teach yourself more words and haven't even attempted to spell them correctly, even using basic "cheater's programs" that help do it for you. This IMO shows at least a basic level of ignorance, that I am worried will be transferred to your snakes, ultimately resulting in premature death. Now that you "let the chicken out of the bag", I have a few things to say.

I hope your venture in this does not end up costing you some of your snakes, and I have my own reservations about making chicken/turkey/pork your main food source. As stated above several times, snakes need more than just the meat of an animal (kidneys, liver, brain, heart, etc.) I know you have stated that you give calcium and vitamin supplaments to your snakes, but I don't think that it's enough to counter-act the fact that the snakes aren't getting the organs that they normally get from rodents. I myself have been without money for mice before, but I just let my snakes go without food until I could get more. I will not try your feeding trial here, simply because I am stuck in my own rutt (I am able to admit that). I do believe that my snakes need a diet with more food choices, but I cannot supply that for them at this time. Notice I said MORE food choices, not just the one I give them. This is where I think your idea has a flaw in it. You constantly give your corns meat, not very much bone, and not very many organs. This is just another way to restrict their diets.

As far as your argument that baby corns don't eat mice in the wild, that is not accurate. Their diet consits of mice as well as lizzards, chicks, frogs, and anything they can fit into their mouths. This being said, the main source of their nutritoin can still be mice. A baby corn's diet is MOSTLY things besides mice. This mean that out of 100 meals, a baby corn will eat as little as one mouse but as many as 49. The majority of the meals are still other foods. If you look at all the foods a baby corn can and most likely does eat, even if 1/4 of their meals are mice, then the other 3/4 are split in a multitude of ways, meaning that a baby corn who eats mice 25% of the time, may only eat lizzards 15%, frogs 20%, chicks 20%, crickets (it does sometimes happen) 10%, and other things not mentioned here 20% of the time. that mean that a mouse can still be the main source of food.

As people have said before, please quote your sources of information reguarding the lactose issue and the hampsters. It would be nice if you did back up your claims. None of my information about the eating habits of baby corns can be backed up, most of that is logical thinking, already knowing that baby corns eat things besides mice. I would hold it with a very fine grain of salt, as I am human and prone to mistakes. I think that the logic is along the right track, if not, someone please correct me.