Aussie Pythons and Snakes

soulweaver · Original Poster #1 13-Apr-04, 06:40 PM

what are people's thoughts on field mice for food?

i know a guy who has a farm and the mice eat the food that is fed to other farm animals, so he uses grain to catch the little guys. There is no poison's involved as it could kill his live stock, so the mice are caught alive.

i was thinking of killing them and then freezing them for at least 2mths.

just wondering people's thoughts.

thanks

Morelia_man · #2 13-Apr-04, 08:51 PM

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Reptile_1989 · #3 13-Apr-04, 08:51 PM

hey soul, my dad caught me some live fuzzies out of our grain silos and i fed them to my beardie and she is absolutly fine and that was about 1 yr ago.

sxereturn · #4 13-Apr-04, 09:31 PM

The risk, compared to the money saved, is way too much for my liking.

Get the mice, kill them and throw them to your local Magpies/Kookaburra's/whatever, they'll love you forever.

NoOne · #5 13-Apr-04, 09:43 PM

I know a guy that catches live mice and keeps them alive for about a month to make sure they have not eaten poison, then kills them and freezes them. He has no probs, he worms his snakes every 6months just in case. He gave me some a year or so ago and i also had no problems with it, freezing will kill most of the bad stuff.
So provided you froze them for a month or two i doubt there would be a problem, definalty keep them alive for a while just to be safe.
Personally i wouldn't make a habit of it.

africancichlidau · #6 13-Apr-04, 10:09 PM

Well I never thought I'd say this but I agree with sxe on this one, just too risky

NoOne · #7 13-Apr-04, 10:35 PM

Not to be argumentative but what exactly are the "risks"your worried about?
Remembering where snakes come from.
I can't really see a risk that can't be prevented if it's the way someone wants to do it.

soulweaver · Original Poster #8 13-Apr-04, 10:48 PM

guess in the end it comes down to a flip of the coin..........take the chance or don't take the chance.....hmmmm

Fuscus · #9 13-Apr-04, 11:09 PM

The safest way would be what NoOne said, except you should worm them as well. I think that if you worm mice you have to keep them alive for a while so that the worming chemicals are voided by the mice. Personally I don't think it is worth the bother.
The risks are ( low-level ) posioning and parasites. We try and keep reptiles way past thier natural use-by date, a diet including natural toxins may cut down the animals life span.
And many animals we keep are the ones that would be winnowed out in the wild, not alert enough, too clumsy or not tolerent enough to common toxins.

Hix · #10 13-Apr-04, 11:17 PM

Over time you can actually get a captive population that is genetically adapted to captivity.

Hix

luke · #11 14-Apr-04, 03:59 PM

why bother how hard is it to go to your local pet shop and spend a few dolars on some no worries/no hassle frozen food.
hey but in the end its your snake ..... your choice.

nuthn2do · #12 14-Apr-04, 06:11 PM

Quote:

There is no poison's involved as it could kill his live stock, so the mice are caught alive.

Be aware that the new types of rodenticides contain a chemical called Brodifacoum. It can take 4-6 days to kill a rodent and if it survives it can remain in that animals tissues for it's entire life.

dobermanmick · #13 14-Apr-04, 06:57 PM

I have kids they are good rat keepers

stretch · #14 17-Apr-04, 04:43 PM

While the mice may eat what the other animals eat, there are going to be other things that they eat aswell.

Let me tell you my story...

My friend used to supply me with mice for my beautiful python Charlotte. She bought a few domestic mice and bred them. Unbeknowns to me she also adopted pinky field mice if she found them in a nest....Now she had these field mice from only a few days old, kept them caged and fed them store bought food. She gave me one of them, and it appeared similar to her others hence I did not notice. I fed it to Charlotte ....within days she fell ill and after 3 weeks of injecting her with antibiotics and fluids she finally gave up and died.

I would never EVER feed wild mice to my babies if. To me, and this is my opinion only and I am giving it as such, feeding field mice to my snakes would be like feeding a roadkill cow to my kids.

stretch · #15 17-Apr-04, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NoOne

Not to be argumentative but what exactly are the "risks"your worried about?
Remembering where snakes come from.
I can't really see a risk that can't be prevented if it's the way someone wants to do it.

If the snakes are brought up in the wild, then the risks are not as severe as in captive bred snakes. Having said that even in the wild a wild snake can succumb to the parasites and bad bacteria in the food it eats.

Captive snakes are far less tolerant to the nasty bugs in wild food due to the environment they have been brought up in.
Again, having said that some can eat it and be fine, doesn't seem to be the norm though.