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Gold fish ok?

Tinycritters said:
i've heard of people feeding them rat pups, and sometimes small chicks. I've never done it, so I can't really tell you too much. Hopefully someone else jumps in soon and can tell you more
Click to expand...

i feed my corn rat pups. he thinks they are the best thing in the world :D
 
Just my two cents:

Even for feeding carnivorous fish, feeder goldfish are discouraged. Aside from the thiaminase, which has already been mentioned, they're very fatty compared to other small fish (guppies and such)--as the page Janine linked to says, in terms of nutrition, they're "junk" fish.

And, very importantly, due to the conditions they're kept in, feeders are very often full of disease (ick, finrot, fungus, dropsy, internal bacterial infections, you name it).

If you do decide to try fish for any type of snake, I would say raise your own. Guppies would be recommended since they're small, growing to less than 3" when fully mature (healthy "feeder" goldfish can grow to 10-18+ inches in a matter of months), and they're livebearers: they'll breed like there's no tomorrow, providing you with an endless supply of tasty little wigglers.

I don't think I'd ever try to feed fish to my corns, in any case (although it would be a great way to get rid of excess molly fry. :grin01: )

(And just for the record, not all goldfish are gold. ;))
 
anoles

I feed my snake an anole from time to time and he loves them. He also seems to grow alot in the week following the anole. We consider it a treat as they are around $5-$9. :crazy02:
 
Gold fish arn't good for corns. It's go to do with nutritional value. mice and rats hold more nutritional value then fish. I've givin my oldest corn mice and rats pups.
 
Well, here is a question, will a corn even eat a fish? If so, would they not be a good alternative food or scent for non-feeders, similar to anoles?
 
Personally I don't know why anyone would ever want to risk feeding somethind dodgy like goldfish, crickets etc etc in the first place.

Corns eat rodents, they are happy eating rodents, they grow well and generally get the right nutrion from rodents. If it's not broke, don't fix it I always say! :D

I don't know about Anoles but I do know that my corns grow extremely well when fed rats, though I do watch their weight carefully and alternate between appropriately sized rats and mice each feeding.
 
I think one of the things that was briefly mentioned earlier is that a corn is not a garter snake..I live within a few hours of the Narcisse snake pits that twice a year thousands..I mean 50 thousand plus garters come out and while speaking with several folks out there ..we were noticing all the junk the garter snake eats..Kind of like the roach of the snake family..sorry hope noone is a garter owner:(

But They seem to have different diets altogether so to compare the two is like apples to oranges ..first off most garters are hardly large enuff to eat a full grown mouse..We saw many adults and they make my adult corns look like monsters. They are a far tinier snake..So i can see why they might live off of fish but their main diet is bugs;)

So once again I wouldnt feed my corn a fish for many of the reasons previously stated..too many risks.."If the wheel at broke why try to fix it"
 
I'll throw in my two cents since I have some experience with feeding fish.... to snakes that is,lol. I have a ribbon snake (more or less a garter) and it eats fish, mainly rosy minnows, but occassionaly goldfish when the pet store is out of the minnows. A "goldfish only" diet will lead to poor nurtrition and the thelamine (spelling) problems...for gaters and ribbons they are fine occassionally, for a corn....NO! Don't feed corns any fish, no point in doing it, they don't have the value that they need even if they would eat it. And of the clumsy baby corns I have had, I would love to see one jump in the dish to try to even catch it, lol. Rats are best nutritional value, but I can't get any of my corns to eat them, they'll eat only mice. Chicks and finches are fine to feed to corns, but let me warn you of the poop smell!! There aint nothing like a pile of crap that used to be a bird that came outta a large snake!! He is eating mice, let him eat mice....you may end up causing a problem if he eats a chick and then decides that is all he will eat. I have that problem with a russian rat snake, was eating medium rats, I gave him some mice one day because I didn't have any rats and didn't want to run the 30 miles to where I can get frozen rats locally. He won't eat another rat since! turns up his nose, even when left all night with it and after not eating 4 weeks....so now I am at the place of feeding 3 or 4 mice to him to equal the rat that he should be eating! Mice are working, stick with them, try rats if you can for the added value, but if he won't eat them, stick with mice before you end up with a headache.
 
Pulling up a zombie from the past here, but google has led me to here. My quest for snakes eating rosies has led me to this thread. I just fed one of my okeetees 4 rosies this evening because today was feeding day and stupid me forgot to place my rodent pro order:(. Anywho I did happen to have enough pinks for the rest of my clan. So I went to the local pet store and picked up 10 rosies. I figured I'd just give it a try. Absolutley no interest at all. So I proceed to put one in his mouth and he gobbles it down. He does the same thing again with the next one... As do I placing another in his mouth. After a brief 5-10 minutes and 4 fish down my little buddy is looking quite full and plump of fish. I placed him separate from the others as I now will be conducting a little expierment over the life of this particular corn snake. I find it very interesting and hopefully it works out for the best. If anyone would like me to keep the updates posted let me know through this thread. Thanks and wish us luck !
 
Goldfish are a no-no for ANY animal. There's a chemical that makes them unable to ever absorb vitamin D (even if you force feed them an ounce of Vit-D supplement) and eventually kill them because of it. Someone mentioned they were fatty too.

I say still to feeding a MIX of rats and mice. Both my corns are getting a mix and have never looked better. I've read that chicks are very nutritious, so if you have a big enough corn, I would say a mix of rats, mice, and chicks would be good. If people feel like dealing with multiple breeding species, including anoles, ASFs, gerbils, and and hamsters is good.

I also remember reading something about snakes in general being healthier and/or living longer on a mixed diet.
 
I also would stray away from feeding things other then mice just because I don't want them to start to refuse to eat mice and then always having to feed anoles or something instead which would be more expensive.
 
I've never done a fecal on an anole that wasn't full of parasite eggs. I would NEVER use them as feeders. Even if you used panacur and kept testing until they were reliably "clean," that's too many calories to burn for a novelty snack.

And goldfish are never a good diet, even for piscivores (which corns are not). I have an aquatic pet shop and wont even stock feeder goldfish, in spite of demand. Besides thiamine issues, the copper levels of feeder comets are reported to be dangerously high. As for cornsnakes, they eat mice readily and thrive on that as their sole diet.
 
:shrugs: It makes sense anoles would be parasitic, but would it be something you couldn't "breed out" by controlling the new generations?
 
Sure, if you treated anoles, and produced eggs, the hatchlings would in theory be clean. An anole colony just wouldn't be worth the trouble, for me. I have gray bands and milks that don't take to pinkies every year, but I'd sooner destroy those hatchlings than keep a breeding colony of anoles -and keep the captive snake species line bred to eat lizards.
 
I'd be game to give the anole colony thing a try if I had a source of a few adult anoles to work with. They'd be on Panacur for life and as soon as I hatched a good crop I'd be able to go into business selling frozen anole hatchlings as alternate starter food! LOL, but it's almost a viable business, or would be if I had the space!
 
Careful what you ask for, I can send you anoles! I kept them as a kid and had quite a few breed. Problem is, they laid ONE egg at a time! I think you could breed leos for food cheaper. The babies are tiny, too. Of course, if they were going straight to the freezer, feeding them wouldn't be an obstacle.
 
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