Food Alternatives

[grahamh]

Team Time again - I'd like to get some views on the following.

The use of chicks instead of mice.

The use of Chickens for larger snakes.

In the area where I live there are several chicken breeders. Now I know that only female chooks are used for egg production and I believe the males are dispensed with - I don't know how. I remember Pinkie saying that you can collect them from Singleton (don't know if they are dead or alive)

I've read that chicks do not have all the nutritional requirements for a snake and I've read contradictory views also.

Also every day in a large chicken establishement some adult chooks die. Is there any reason why these could not be used as a food source for the larger python species.

Any Views :roll:

 

[pythonss]

chickens.

hi graham
we use to have a chicken farm up here so we did use this as a food sourse to add veriation in there diet.
how ever while they can survive on chickens .Chickens dont provide the growth or health as rats etc. but if you can get them they are a great change of diet.
with the older chickens that die at the farm , the last thing i would feed my snakes is somthing that had died of undertermind causes. You just never know what you may be passing on to your animals.
cheers paul.

 

[grahamh]

Thanks Paul

I had a funny feeling about the older chooks and was also concerned about the potential hormones that used to be fed to make chooks grow. I don't know if they still use them.

I think I'll go and buy an old chest freezer and start stocking up on rats.

BTW the two olives have settled in well and although lively, settle down quickly when I handle them (only 3 times since their arrival) with no sign of snappyness. Very lovely young snakes. 8)

 

[Magpie]

Paul (or anyone else,) do you know what is missing from chicks? ie what it is that means they don't provide as good health and growth for the snakes? Would it just be a lack of fat? Day old chicks are pretty lean I suppose.
If you go to the chicken farm to get day old chicks to feed your snakes, they will probably charge you for them (guy I know pays $100 for 200.) Most Rescue organsations can get them for free as they throw thousands of them out most days. If you know someone at the farm, you can probably get them for free also.

 

[Pinkie]

We (wires) collect day-old chicks from a farm at Singleton, yes. They are frozen for us.

The day-olds have heaps of yolk in them, when I chop them up for kookaburras or tawnies, I take all the yolk (yellow bit) out because its bad for the birds if feeding them the chicks daily or twice daily. It is too rich/concentrated for them to handle. Maybe this is also bad for snakes if they were fed the chicks on a regular basis?

 

[tony]

what about rabbits as an alternative to rats. I was advised to feed one of our snakes rabbits instead, to bulk her out, but am not sure what size to feed, or where to even get them. any ideas anyone?

 

[grahamh]

Hi Tony

Depends where you are:

I'm pretty sure you can get rabbits from Reptile Munchies. I've included the address but the site seems to be unavailable at the moment.

http://www.nnsw.quik.com.au/khearn/mainhtml/repmunchies.html

or E-mail: [email protected] or Phone: (02) 9863 3091

 

[almaron]

You know, I've heard that day old chicks lack nutritional value, but I'm also quite curious what exactly they are lacking. As far as chickens in general not providing the same growth rate, I'd be curious to find out why. I don't really doubt it, I suppose, but I'd like to see some type of evidence, research, study, etc. Preferably something that would indicate the reason for it.

On of the reasons for my curiosity on this, is that I have also heard it claimed, more than once, by reputable sources, that feeding mice causes slower growth than than feeding rats. However, my data shows no such thing. I posted what I found here:

http://www.aussiepythons.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=phpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=310&highlight=

Now I know that my data would hardly be considered "scientific research" or anything, but it makes me wonder if similar comparisons have been done. Has anyone ever tried feeding multiple groups of snakes different diets, and then charted the growth? I would like to see the growth rates of specimens fed on mice, rats, birds, reptiles, and then a combination. If anyone has ever seen anything resembling this type of research, could you point me to it. I have come up dry in my searches.

 

[grahamh]

G'day Al

following on from what you said (I'd be interested also) - I recently suggested that if anyone's interested in putting together some stats on growth rates it would be useful to the group at the very least. It would mean doing the snake,food item weighing stuff but there are probably more than one or two people who already do this. I have started along the lines you described and now with 2 baby olives to monitor I have three little'uns to plot a growth thingy for. Maybe somehow we could register each snake in the scheme on APS and upload out weekly figures. Then at some point we could do some stats and comparisons of snakes and food types etc.

Maybe it's too complicated. :cry:

 

[roadkill5000]

i know my friend feeds his sand monitors on chickens as a main part of there diet

 

[sobrien]

Hi tony,
If you are in Vic or are still looking for rabbits, go here
http://pailsforscales.150m.com/index.html
He has rabbits and will ship them to you if you need them.
Cheers Simon

 

[OzDAZ]

I read that pinkies and to a lesser extent rat pups are not a great source of nutrition and shouldnt be used any longer than nessary before moving up to more developed rodents, due to there age and not having a great deal of fat stores and calcium in the bones maybe even bone marrow or something to that effect, it may well be the same with day old chickens, thou pinky did say the yokes have a very high concentration of energy (for lack of a better word).
But I have heard from a few places that new born rodents don?t contain a great deal of nutrients a python needs to develop.

But if your bored and crazy you could always try for the best of both worlds.

couldnt help using this pic again it suits this thread so well :roll: :wink:
OZ

 

[africancichlidau]

Paul (or anyone else,) do you know what is missing from chicks?

Maggie I think its the bit that makes us boys boys :twisted: :twisted:

 

[OzDAZ]

:?: Testosterone :?:

Damn I miss those bouncing frogs :cry:

OZ

 

[pythonss]

chickens.

hi everyone..
the question has pretty much been answered but i will just through in a opinion..

yes like pink mice and rats..baby chickens are lacking in any developed bones or mussel for that matter..the are basicly all feathers and ****

you can feed these to snakes but to get any true value you would have to feed large amounts at every feed and you will also find that the digestion of these only takes a few day and then the snake is looking for more.

adult chickens make a better meal but you have to then have a snake that can get his mouth around one.

we how ever do feel that chickens as a diet change works well.
cheers paul.

 

[wattso]

Hi, I dont knowe if anyone is still following this thread but its interesting indeed. I have thought about varying my pyths tucker, its just rats, rats and occasionally...rats! Ivwe been told birds of anykind are not good because, snakes have a hard time digesting feathers etc? al;so that things like bunnys have too thick fur? what else do you folks feed your pyths. p.s. mine is nearly 9ft and 4.5kg how big a prey item is too big? guinnypig? which comes back to the 'small reg meals or infrequent big meals" debate. any updated info appreciated please. :?

 

[Brodie]

Well I feed fed rather th female NT carpet I had for a while mostly small rats but every 3rd feed I gave a day old chick or to with no problems

 

[ad]

Go to the Pets section and look for "Free Kittens to a good home..." :wink:

Is this an urban myth or do people really do it!

 

[Morelia_man]

lmao ad, i think we have all thought of that! but i am sure none of us have ever done it! or will admit it anyway
what about quails? they are easy to breed, why not feed these?? i know they feed them at the territory wildlife park to the oenpellie as a staple diet.

 

[seth]

It's funny you mention kittens cause mine really pissing me off meowing and crying.Just one problem though my snakes are just hatchies!!