Fast food

[poppycorn]

For those of you with larger collections, could you please describe your snake feeding routine? I'm up to about a dozen hatchlings and on feeding day I feed everybody in their own separate feeding container, change their waters (disposable deli sauce cups), spot clean any new poops (very few, since I usually do this daily), and log who ate what size etc. in their individual notebooks. No matter how hard I try, I've never been able to do this in less than 2 hours, even without any "play" time. I am a busy mom with a full time job so if I can't find a way to do this quicker, I can't really justify getting more than a couple more snakes. Please help, I want more snakes.

 

[Pumilio]

What I've heard from people who breed large groups, (and can't control themselves as far as buying new snakes before next year though they promised)... :grin01: is that they stagger the feeding schedule so that no more than a few snakes need to feed on any one day. Also I'd work it like an assembly line, where all feeding tubs are set up with food, and all the snakes go into them at once to get them all fed quickly. I realize I only have one of my own, but it seems to work nicely for others. Good luck!

 

[princess]

I totally agree, I stagger the days and also do a bit of a production line thing with the handful that are being fed. I seem to always have the roster in my head so I know that when I come home I'll take 6 hoppers and 8 adults out of the freezer so that they can start thawing and be ready for later.

It does take a long time to feed a lot of snakes if you want to keep records but every hobby has it's costs.

The biggest job is when I decide to totally clean all of the vivs in one afternoon..sheesh!!! :sidestep:

 

[princess]

Also I forgot to ad -when you have a number of snakes at different sizes and ages, they all seem to be on different schedules so the concept of 'feeding day' will go out the window!! :grin01:

 

[Roy Munson]

What I've heard from people who breed large groups, (and can't control themselves as far as buying new snakes before next year though they promised)... :grin01: is that they stagger the feeding schedule so that no more than a few snakes need to feed on any one day. Also I'd work it like an assembly line, where all feeding tubs are set up with food, and all the snakes go into them at once to get them all fed quickly. I realize I only have one of my own, but it seems to work nicely for others. Good luck!

Sounds like a good system. I feel bad for your out-of-control associates, whoever they are.

 

[The Nothing]

i don't have a ton of snakes, but i do have a ton of scorpions (close to 300)
i do feedings 5 days a week. one shelf a day

 

[VinnyJ]

Feeding and cleaning time.

Hi Marsha,

I too ran into the same time constraints being a single father and trying to have more snakes. 12 snakes is deffinitely not enough Lol. This is what I did:

I built a rack for my adult snakes so their containers could easily slide in and out eliminating the need for a lid. Snake tubs are so much easier to manage in a rack IMO. I clean and feed on separate days so when it's feeding time it's as simple as sliding the tub open a little, dropping in some food, and then pushing it back in. Feeding 20 adult corns takes about 20 mins and that includes going back to all the ones that want more.

I split my collection up in to different days so I'm not caring for the entire collection all at the same time. Your collection for example:

Monday: Feed and water snakes 1-3, Clean tubs of snakes 4-6, spot clean everyone else
Tuesday: Feed and water snakes 4-6, Clean tubs of snakes 7-9, spot clean everyone else
Wednesday: Feed and water snakes 7-9, Clean tubs of snakes 9-12, spot clean everyone else
Thursday: Feed and water snakes 9-12, Clean tubs of snakes 1-3, spot clean everyone else

Spot clean the rest of the days.

I'm sure you could alter that to fit your schedule. I hope that helps. It really helped me when I had about 100 corns.

Take care,
VJ

 

[poppycorn]

Thanks for the tips, folks. I set up an assembly line last night with all the food tubs pre-loaded with clipped mice & replaced the individual notebooks with an Excel-generated chart on a clipboard and was done feeding 10 of them in 45 minutes. Less than half my usual time but still not as fast as dropping it in the box...

as simple as sliding the tub open a little, dropping in some food, and then pushing it back in.

is that in reality how most of the folks with larger collections do it, despite all the valid reasons not to?

Vinny: "I split my collection up in to different days so I'm not caring for the entire collection all at the same time. Your collection for example:"

I think I'm going to split it up according to snake size so that those that can handle similar-sized food items will be fed together, like milking strings on a dairy. I'll start this up once I get my adult rack built, hopefully over the holidays. That will also help accomodate the extended feeding schedule once the bigger ones are solidly on fuzzies.

Princess: when you have a number of snakes at different sizes and ages, they all seem to be on different schedules so the concept of 'feeding day' will go out the window!!

lol I'm starting to realize that - I'm amazed at how different their growth rates are!

I'd love to hear any additional suggestions, too.
Five snakies coming next week!

Thanks, Marsha

 

[dionythicus]

I feed very few in separate containers and have had no problems with ingested substrate or being bitten by greedy snakes on non-feeding days. I'm up to 64 snakes and I have two days for feedings. The main collection gets fed in less than an hour (sometimes more if I have refill water or find other reasons to dally). The quarantine room gets fed a different day and most of them are on papertowels, so I just plop in a pink or fuzzy and call it good, maybe 30 mins. I thaw the mice while I'm doing other chores, so I'm multi-tasking, and I have an exact print out of who gets what so I can go through them all prettt quickly. Thaw the mice while you're fixing dinner or helping with homework. Then go through the feeding routine before bed.

I know people claim that snakes are low maintenance, and that's mostly true, but they still are time consuming like any pet or hobby. There's no way around having to put time into their care. My hubby will help me sometimes with it, so maybe you can tag team and save time?

 

[Hurley]

I feed around 70 snakes on the big feeding day and around 30 snakes on the "hatchling" feeding day. I stage it around doing other stuff and work in groups.

Myself personally, I don't feed on substrate. I feed mostly frozen-thawed and the aspen sticks to the prey more than I like, which results in snakes spending time trying to get the aspen out of their mouth after swallowing. I'm not fond of the problems with feeding them on aspen, as few and far between as they are...losing a unique hatchling to mouth rot from getting aspen jabbed into its jaw was enough by itself, let alone the risk of impaction or the larger ones that try to ingest the food and the paper towel it's on if you feed that way.

I thaw out what I need and have it on a paper-towel covered platter. I run through the stacks of boxes, pull out hatchling, pop it and its food into a gladware feeding box, clean the water bowl and substrate, put gladware and water bowl in box, mark "in shed" or "shed" check boxes on the feeding sheet, and move on to the next one. I then leave the stack of boxes with feeding boxes and snakes inside for an hour while I'm doing other things to give them time to partake. When I come back, I go through the boxes, unload a good snake (fed) or a scolded snake (didn't feed), and remove the feeding box, then mark a + or - on their feeding sheet in the "ate" column.

I've got 4 divisions of feedings, the shoeboxes (hatchlings), the medium boxes (yearlings), the large boxes (small adults), and the breeder boxes (large adults, breeding groups). Hatchlings and yearlings eat in gladware sandwhich containers. Adults eat in 9 inch deli cups. These fit nicely in their boxes so that I don't have to worry about anyone popping a top after they finish eating.

If I am really in a rush (rather than my usually drag it out all day process), I can feed in 4 or 5 hours (70 snakes). That's cage cleaning, water cleaning, feeding, and returning them to their shelves. That's also without a handy lidless rack system, so bear that in mind. Takes time to replace all those clippies to the lids.

 

[VinnyJ]

Hello again Marsha,

I can't speak for everyone(obviously) but all of the 50+ reptile collections I've seen have been maintained in some type of rack system. I think being organized and having some type of plan ahead of time is the biggest part. When I go to clean I've folded paper towels and washed all the neccesary bowls, tubs, ect.. the previous day. I know what column of snakes in the rack is being cared for that day and I have all the neccessary supplies at hand. I agree with Pumilio on having some type of assembly line going even if it's just having some clean tubs with paper or substrate already in them and ready to be swapped out with the dirty ones. I use newspaper for my adults and subadults and paper towels for my hatchlings and yearlings. I only have one snake on aspen and that is my Redtail boa. He's too big to care about a couple pieces of aspen.

I agree with Hurley... clippies take at least 2 sec per clippie. Lol.


VJ