I have at different times fed my snakes food from "uncontrolled sources" with no problems whatsoever. Once a small owl flew in front of my truck and got caught in the grill. When I stopped to check out the damage, he/she was right there above the fender. At the time, I had a retic that only ate birds (I mentioned this in a post below), so I viewed this as a free meal. Went home and tossed it in the cage and she gobbled it up. No problems at all.



I have at different times fed pythons dead squirrels, rabbits and rats from the wild. I have never had a problem, and I've never used an animal that was shot. I used a veterinarian in the early '90's who was a big boa breeder, and he said that snakes do not contract diseases from mammals. It was his suggestion that I feed my big ones dead animals from the wild (including fresh roadkill). I have done this only a few times, and I haven't fed a python anything from "uncontrolled sources" in many years. But I have done it, and I've never had a snake suffer any side effects from doing so. I realize that the potential is there, such as if an animal had been poisoned, but it hasn't been an issue so far.



I know this is a controversial practice, and I mentioned it over on the Burmese forum a few months ago and got flamed pretty hard by a couple of posters. But several others said they had done the same things in times past. It's probably not as uncommon as many may think.



RP

[ Show Entire Thread ]