I highly recommend feeding chickens. It is a nutritious and tasty treat that helps guard against a highly restricted diet of thawed out rabbits - over and over and over- and the deficiencies that diet could create.

As long as you get your chickens from a good source, you aren't risking salmonella poisoning. A recently concluded study on food animal production by the University of Iowa (if I remember correctly)found that only 3% of salmonella cases originated at the farm level. Most problems with salmonella originate in the processing plants which is why it is a bad idea to feed reptiles -or any animal- raw processed chicken or pork.

I have a retic that feeds mainly on freshly-killed chickens and she is gorgeous. I have no doubt that a snake can be properly maintained on freshly killed chickens its entire life as well as it could on freshly killed rabbits or pigs.

Now before anyone starts talking about how he has fed only thawed rabbits for fifty years and his snakes are the healthiest in the world- I want to say that it is my personal understanding from my experience and conversations with serious hobbysists and professionals throughout the years that a freshly killed diet is best and that nutritional deficiencies can manifest with all sorts of symptoms that may not be directly attributed to diet. I don't want to make this reply longer than it is so I will not post the deatils. If you cannot feed freshly-killed the next best thing for the health of your Burmese is to vary the diet.
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Marcia Pimentel

Tango River Reptiles

GiantFeeders

[ Hide Replies ]

• Feeding chickens - ox, Wed Jul 2 21:03:06 2003
• RE: Feeding chickens - 1snakeman, Thu Jul 3 00:27:10 2003
• RE: Feeding chickens - tango, Thu Jul 3 05:31:08 2003
• RE: Feeding chickens - 1snakeman, Thu Jul 3 13:33:40 2003
• Wow! I didn't know that. (see? you make me say this a LOT!) - BrianSmith, Thu Jul 3 19:54:29 2003
• RE: Wow! I didn't know that. (see? you make me say this a LOT!) - Thomas j, Thu Jul 3 20:23:04 2003
• RE: Wow! I didn't know that. (see? you make me say this a LOT!) - BrianSmith, Thu Jul 3 20:44:03 2003
• RE: Feeding chickens - ox, Fri Jul 4 00:01:13 2003
• One of my favorite subjects! - RoyerReptiles, Fri Jul 4 11:15:35 2003