Flea powder on herp food

[snakegal]

Hi All,

I was just wondering whether anyone know if rats & mice going to be used for reptile food are likely to have flea powders (and the like) on them?

I spoke to an experienced herper a few days ago who washes all snake food in mild earth friendly organic & biodegradable detergent before rinsing well and drying and feeding to the herps.

I'd never thought about flea powders & similar stuff being used on rats & mice to be used as food before. Does anyone know if this is done?

Cheers!

[Pythoninfinite]

I certainly don't (and wouldn't) powder my rodents, and I don't know any breeder who does. I've actually never seen fleas or lice on them ever, and I've handled thousands of dead rodents from a range of sources in the past 40 years and never seen a flea - that's when you'd easily notice them, either in the thawing water or on the fur.

- I spoke to an experienced herper a few days ago who washes all snake food in mild earth friendly organic & biodegradable detergent before rinsing well and drying and feeding to the herps.-

Now that is one weird dude! What is "mild earth friendly organic and biodegradable detergent" - does prefixing the chemical detergent with those 4 gentle nouns make it OK for a reptile to ingest even small amounts (which would be unavoidable)? It would be a toss-up whether the detergent does as much harm as the flea powder or vice-versa. But I guess there's always one in the crowd.

Jamie.

[Pythoninfinite]

Another thing - rodents are constantly grooming, so would ingest large amounts of any insecticide powders that were applied. It would be present throughout the digestive system and maybe the tissue as well, so washing would be virtually useless.

J.

[Julie-anne]

Wouldn't the freezing process kill any fleas and the like anyway? i'm sure the mammals snakes eat in the wild are covered in a lot worse.
On another note... a freind of mine fed their snake live mice and oneday had a dead snake ...turned out the petshop he bought the mouse from spray their mice for fleas/diseases/etc (and obviously assume their live mice are not being bought as feeders), this pesticide spray was posionous and killed the snake
...this alone is enough to convinve me not to live feed (amongst many other reasons)

[LeaBilby]

When snakes catch mice in the wild, they don't stop and say "hey, I must flea powder them first so I don't get them little bugs down me front" do they?
I think we do way to much cleansing for these previously self sufficient beings, and come to think about it, cavemen didn't use detergent and they still managed to evolve in to a fairly sophisticated race, ( minus a couple of braincells in some incidences, of course)!

[snakegal]

When I said organic etc I was just trying to specify it's a very mild detergent the person used. You can actually get completely natural diswashing liquids (from health food shops), which was what I was referring to.

I'm not referring to the snakes worrying about lice, I'm saying that some breeders who have large facilities may use powders to control fleas and lice getting out of control. I doubt snakes would give a crap, I'm talking from the breeders point of view. They do have to have some hygiene standards even for snake food.

Thanks anyway

[snakegal]

You are onto a good point there, unless they had been recently powdered most of it would be internal.

Originally Posted by Pythoninfinite

Another thing - rodents are constantly grooming, so would ingest large amounts of any insecticide powders that were applied. It would be present throughout the digestive system and maybe the tissue as well, so washing would be virtually useless.

J.

[Pythoninfinite]

I breed thousands of rodents a month, I rely on good food, hygienic housing, humane killing (I don't enjoy this) and prompt processing and freezing for quality. As I said, I have never seen fleas on domestic (lab) rodents, and I've never heard of rodent/food breeders using insecticides to routinely treat their animals, and I've been in the reptile keeping business for 40+ years. I'm sure it's not an issue worth attention.

Jamie.

[snakegal]

Thanks Jamie that answers my questions.