Can water pythons eat gold fish?

[Blue_Streak]

Can water pythons eat gold fish? if there in a small bowl of water, i have a friend who just bought a water python and he read some where you can feed them gold fish, live in water. and are they good he said something about protien in the fish is great for the snake.?

(fuscus maybe u know something, u have water pythons... i think)
cheers

[africancichlidau]

Yup.

[Blue_Streak]

They can? ok, and are gold fish good for water pythons? or how are they as good, worse or better than rats?

[Fuscus]

I can't see any problems if the snake takes the fish other than you may teach the animal only to take live food. The fish certainly won't be bad for him.
But water pythons are a bit of a misnomer, they don't live in the water and their prey of choice is rats. During the dry season they follow the rats and actually migrate away from water.
File snakes, however, live in water and are actually very uncomfortable out of water. And they feed exclusivly on fish. Your friend may be confusing to two species.

[BROWNS]

Not sure about nutritional value long term if only eating fish but i would guess you'd have a smell to deal with when it comes out the other end.

You'll be needing to breed carp by the time your waters are yearlings.....

Does or has anyone here fed their pythons fish?

[Ramsayi]

Yeah Browns,
I have fed fish occasionally to Juvie Bredli and also Macs.Can't see any problem feeding them fish occasionally as long as the choice of fish doesn't have sharp spikes.
As far as smell from the non bitey end,I can't say if it is any better or worse than when they eat rodents.

[peterescue]

Be aware that most snakes, lizards and freshwater turtles do not have the ability to cope with high salt intake.
For this reason you should not feed them on salt water and estuary fish.
Peter

[Robert]

that would be a an expensive meal.LOL.
5 star Meal.Although i used axolotiles though for the GTS.
If you are gonna do it use comet's.(goldfish)
Wouldn't do it all the time just on occasion.I find that i have to use quite a few a week to keep weight on my GTS,although they have a much faster metabilizim.Smell is no worse than rat waste.But would rather be feeding rats to them or mice for that matter.
Rats will keep the weight on better.Probably a better calcium dosage aswell.Not 100% sure though.

[instar]

Im surprised a snake other than a filey would take a fish! How on earth did you get it intrested in a cold fish????? (learn something new everyday)

[Robert]

GTS and alot of colubrids for that matter are predominatley Lizard,fish,frog eater's in the wild,although they can be weaned onto rats/mice.I have been trying for a while though you need to start them very early or it can be a challenge,so for the time being she is happy to eat fish and loves axolotles although they are $15 a pop.But still try a fuzzie every fortnight.
Other wise it's 2 medium comet's or at least 5-6 small ones usually $10.That's every week though virtually.It is a warm environment and She is very active and burns her feeds off quickly.

Great snakes though,alot more entertaining than pythons,and you can get some gr8 looking colubrids.They are mainly sight orrentated feeder's so they focus on anything moves.Hard to make a dead mouse move without poking it to move.Poke the rat then she just wants you.Fish do the work for you.
I'm looking forward to hopefully successfully breed from her this year,my 1st shot so we will see what happens.Will be interesting/frustrating/fun trying to get those little mouths feeding.

[instar]

How cool is that! Thanks for info Robert. are GTS or BTS class 2 ?

[Fuscus]

Originally Posted by Robert

that would be a an expensive meal.LOL.

No it wouldn't. You can purchase "Feeder" goldfish from most aquarium stores for very little. These are goldfish that have not colored and would otherwise be destroyed.

[herptrader]

Often pink mice will be scented with fish to get problem feeders going. I belive in many instances they can work better for scenting pinkies than skinks which is odd considering skinks are often the natural first food of many pythons such as children's pythons

We bought feeder fish to put in our turtle pond to keep the mosquitos down. They have all evetually coloured up very nicely. Instead of the $1 feeder fish we started off with we now have $25 fancy gold fish. They also help keep the turtles exersized and their owners entertained watchin the action ;-)

[ether]

Yeh i fed the file snakes at the Zoo goldfish once and the matta matta turtles.

Regards Ether

[Rina]

This could be a great enrichment activity for the snake if you could work out a setup in your enlcosue.
Regards Rina