Are Rabbits effecient food items?

[wokka]

My involvement in reptiles is reducing as I free up my time to travel in my twilight years.Through Rodentfarm I still have an interest in larger snakes feeding Olive BHPs and now, indirectly even Oenpellis. Feeding about 100 adult individuals can use a few hundred Jumbo rats which is both costly and time consuming. The majority of our large snakes are now fed rabbits which has cut down our workload substantially. We now feed a large food item between 700 grams and 1.5kilos each month instead of more regular feeds each week or so.This cuts down on the cleaning as animals deficate once a month instead of weekly. Large food items produce large poos, although many of the larger snakes live in outdoor aviaries. It is easier to let a snake out on the grass to relieve itself a week after feeding than to have a kilo plus of waste smeared around the cage.
I think it also gives the animals digestive system "time off" between feeds, which probably mimics the inconsistent availability of feed in the wild. Anecdotally there is always the arguement about old rats being fat whilst the rabbits we feed are in their prime and lean, although I have yet to see any research to say that fat is bad for snakes and it is likely that many of the wild food items are made up of the sick or aged more mature prey.
On Home - Rodent Farm Jumbo rats are $10 which translates to $30 odd a kilo ( and they are the cheapest size rat per kilo) whereas extra large rabbits are $20 and so 2/3 the price of the Jumbo Rats. (Smaller rats are $40 plus a kilo) Add to that the labour saving and likely health benefits it seems to me rabbits are a more efficient feed, particularly for larger snakes.
I'd be interested to hear the experiences of others in feeding large snakes.

 

[solar 17]

My only "question" on such a spaced feeding regime is do snakes suffer from nitrogen debt as humans do ? solar 17 ~B~

 

[wokka]

My only "question" on such a spaced feeding regime is do snakes suffer from nitrogen debt as humans do ? solar 17 ~B~

Hi Baden, you are the health professional not me; but i think it is dangerous to exstapolate human research and apply it to reptiles. I dont know what you are talking about re Nitrogen but I think reptiles are made for feast or famine and humans are not.

 

[Bushman]

I agree with your thinking on this Wokka. Rabbits are a good alternative food item, especially for large pythons. For example, very large Diamonds can be fed on adult rabbits, which is the equivalent of an adult possum, which they prey on in the wild. It's arguably better for them and is certainly much easier to swallow. Big snakes (~3m+) only need a few-several such large feeds per year to survive/thrive (depending on size).
Also rabbits seem to have bigger bones, therefore more calcium, which would also be beneficial. They are also easier to breed than rats. The only downside to rabbits is that they're such cute animals, that most people will find it hard to euthanize them and those with kids have buckley's in breeding them for snake food.

 

[Ramy]

I have heard that rabbit does not have much in the way of vitamins and minerals. As a sole source of nutrition for a human, you'll end up using more vitamins digesting it than you will get out of it.
I do not know if this translates to being a problem for reptiles. I don't know if there have been any studies done on the nutritional requirements of pythons, but it can't hurt to throw in the occasional rat, chicken or quail just for something different?

I have used a monthly feeding regime for a while, the only problem I found was keeping track of when the last feed was (which is easy to overcome). Fat should only be a problem to animals who aren't getting enough exercise, or who are being fed a little more than they need (which is the side we err on in pets).