Thank you, Alan. That's very interesting - it certainly doesn't show chicks as being lacking in much of anything. I had read another study by a major zoological organization, indicating a chick diet was inadequate for birds of prey, due to calcium deficiencies.

I looked this up, after Robert Bruce had advised me that chicks and quail were not as nutritious as rodents. I did, at the time, also look up cryptosporidiosis, and what I read scared me enough to avoid older birds for feeding use.

I'm going to see if I can find the study I'd found before, regarding chicks vs. rodents as a diet. Meanwhile, many thanks for the input -- it seems to me that my snakes much prefer birds; when they initially refuse an offered rodent, they will IMMEDIATELY and ALWAYS take a day old quail....which begins the feeding session, after which I can stuff almost anything in their face.

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