Rat Fur Causing Intestinal Blockage. Any Experience?

[Earthling]

My vet has been saying I should go to mice for snake food as Rat Fur causes Intestinal blockage, resulting in vets having to clear the obstruction.
However, with the large majority of herpers feeding their herps rats, I would have thought IF it was a major problem, it would have been realised many moons ago and people would have swapped over to mice. Thus my reasoning is that rats are fine.

Please prove me wrong..........

Have you had this happen to your herps?

[cyclamen]

interesting question, i have never heard of this happening before. i guess the possibilities are always there. some of my big snakes have alot of rat fur binding there poo together. would like to hear others opinions on this as well.

[MrBredli]

Last time i checked mice had fur too. Your vet is an idiot.

[dickyknee]

I would have thought feeding say 5 mice to one same sized rat will result in the same amount of fur if not maybe more .
do they have the same kind of fur ??

[Bredlislave]

I don't think snakes get hairballs

Never heard of this before and have always fed rats without problems

Sandee

[liasis]

yeah lets feed mice i will only need 10000 for one feed for one of my snakes i will stick with rats your vet is an idiot alright

[Bredlislave]

Who is this vet that has to remove rat fur obstructions ?

wait a bit longer and it will move all by itself

Sandee

[serpenttongue]

Rats are the main diet for many pythons in the wild and captivity. Fur will never cause constipation. Constipation may be caused by lack of drinking water, poor digestion due to incorrect temps and occasionally large bones or heavily feathered food etc. But the fur itself will pass easily through the animal. Fur is not the cause of constipation.

[Chrisreptile]

Originally Posted by serpenttongue

Rats are the main diet for many pythons in the wild and captivity. Fur will never cause constipation. Constipation may be caused by lack of drinking water, poor digestion due to incorrect temps and occasionally large bones or heavily feathered food etc. But the fur itself will pass easily through the animal. Fur is not the cause of constipation.

thats sort of what i was thinking, without the big words.

[centralian11]

I hope your vet is on the Gold Coast because i would hate to ever take one of my pythons to that vet If what he said was true why is it that pythons will always prosper when fed rats . Now i sell both rats and mice so have nothing to gain either way but i have 2 coastals here from the same clutch ,one went onto rats early and i had problems getting the other to take anything but mice.
The one on rats is a third as big in length and twice as big in the girth . Don't let any body convince you that rats cause fur balls . They are pythons natural food and i adult rat would not have as much fur as 8 mice , but would contain more calcium and the snake would take longer to eat a full grown rat and therefore exercise the jaws more .All i can say that is a load of b--s .
Barry.

[medlock86]

i spoke to the bloke from 'scails and tails' last week about this. he reckons that feeding 1 or a few day old chicks helps clean out/detox the snakes insides. as you can tell from their # 2's, it stinks and isn't very hard compared to after eating a rat.

thats my 2 cents anyway

daniel

[hugsta]

I feel sorry for all the constipated waters at fogg damm.

[hugsta]

Originally Posted by medlock86

i spoke to the bloke from 'scails and tails' last week about this. he reckons that feeding 1 or a few day old chicks helps clean out/detox the snakes insides. as you can tell from their # 2's, it stinks and isn't very hard compared to after eating a rat.

thats my 2 cents anyway

daniel

Don't know where he got a detox programme for snakes from, but the runny poos are generally because the day old chooks don't have much nutrients in them. Nothing to give them a decent poo. As an alternate food source they certainly don't hurt though.

[medlock86]

he told me they were full of protein as they eat the yolk out of the egg then get frozen not long after. i give em to my bredli for a few weeks in a row every 3/4 months i guess.

[hugsta]

Yes, they are full of protein, but that isn't a balanced meal, like a rodent is. They are good to feed as an alternate food source, but not as a main food source.