Thanks Derek

I actually don't only feed mice, I also feed young quail to the anthills. I would say probably about 75% mice and 25% quail. Probably neither are as lean as lizards, and I have often thought about breeding or buying feeder lizards (although I have to admit more for getting babies feeding than for my breeders).

So what do you feed your adult BHPs? What do you start your juvis on? And how do you deal with parasites feeding herps to other herps?



As far as nutrition in relation to my problem...

Where did you here that about chicken eggs? I have never heard anything like that and I can't find any research on it either.???

In mammals one of the last things to fully develop is the lungs. Or really the surfactant, a chemical that allows the lungs to stay open and pliable, is not produced until late in development. But while reptiles and birds are fairly similar they have VERY different lungs. I don't know of any studies looking at the respiratory development in herps but a snakes lung is a very simple sacular organ and to my knowledge they don't use surfactant. Also, I have necropsied several of them looking for a cause and the lungs appeared physically and histologically normal. I am not saying you are wrong, I just don't think that the picture is that simple.


As far as nutrition in general...
I have been very very torn about feeding herps laboratory mice when they are evolved to eat other herps. Especially in terms of getting these anthills to feed. It seems like I bend over backwards to get them to finally give in and recognize a mouse as a food item, when what i should be doing is what they are trying to tell me, and feed them lizards. I have seen several nutritional analysis done on whole prey animals and the differences between a captive mouse, a wild mouse, and a lizard are not as enormous as you would think. Don't get me wrong, they are different (especially in terms of % body fat), I am just not sure its different enough to make a difference.

I would love to hear more about how you feed. Are you saying that you had this dead in the egg problem and it went away completely when you stopped feeding rodents? Did you change anything else?

Cheers

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