Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I feed a combination of f/t rats and f/t chicks. I'm lucky enough to have a hatchery near me where I can get chicks for $15 per 100. I ALWAYS freeze them for a couple weeks before feeding them...Although this may not kill ALL of the bacteria, it stops further growth and should wipe out salmonella (? someone please correct me if I'm wrong here) The feces is a little messier with chicks (sometimes they pass the little feet and beeks )
But then...Dry poop is never going to be in a neat little package like boid poop anyway!

This diet does the job of getting in some variety and cutting costs a bit. A typical meal for an adult snake would be one med rat and 3-5 chicks. Some of my big yt's get 2 rats AND the chicks. I feed once a week for adult males (over 3 years old) and about every 5 days for younger snakes and females that have laid eggs within about 3-5 months, until they get their bodyweight back.

Juvi's (under a year) get fed 2 x's per week...mice or rat chubs.

Although I have admittedly had an "off" year with breeding the eastern indigos this year, I firmly believe it has nothing to do with diet.

I have been successfully producing eastern indigos in this fashion since 1994, and this is my very first experience with "bad luck". Since my lucky streak has now been interrupted...I can now come out and say (not brag, mind you...)
that until this year, every time I've tried to breed a female Dry they have produced at least some fertile eggs, with no problems with egg binding or "re-absorption". I have used only the diet I mentioned above.

It's also the first year I've EVER tried to breed any of my females 3 consecutive years. In the past, 2 years in a row has been the max for any of my females.

So...shame on me for trying I guess. They had great bodyweight and seemed ready, so I went for it. 2 of the 3 are completely heathly, and seemed to have re-absorbed the eggs early on, which may have been their body's way of avoiding disaster.

The third female has re-absorbed most of her eggs...but has ONE small egg still in her body. She's eating and passing, and is currently being treated with antibiotics...

We'll watch her closely for another couple weeks and decide if surgery is necessary.

Like you, I also have a source for cheap F/T chicks and usually keep a bag of them in the freezer. They don't really make up a regular part of my snake's diet but I throw in a few chicks every once in a while to mix things up. They are relished by my cribos, pines and ratsnakes (and always seems to do the trick when one of them decides to be a picky eater).
I haven't noticed any adverse effects from feeding chicks or any significant difference in their stool after eating rats or chicks. (One of my everglades rats decided she would only eat chicks for a couple months after laying eggs last year.)
I'm fairly comfortable that proper hand washing after handling my snakes or cleaning cages is enough to protect me from salmonella if any of my snakes are carriers.
I thought I had read somewhere that there are a couple thousand strains of salmonella and while some can be transferred from one animal to another, many other strains are species specific.
Chris

Because of the current upheavel in my life,I havent been able to participate much on line or on the forums. It is nice to see the good results that Dean and others here are receiving in their quest of the production of Drymarchon. Great job guys!

My feeding programs for Drymarchon are as follows:

I tend to feed what I can best get ahold of. In my case, mice and rats are a staple part of the diet that I feed my Eastern Indigos and Rubidus. For adult Drymarchon,I will feed 4-5 small pre killed rats per feeding, with feedings spaced out 10 days apart, or longer if they go into a shed cycle.(Which happens frequently) I also feed adult Eastern Indigos Mice, often as much as 10-12 mice per animal. Again, feedings are spaced out in ten day increments.
I occasionally feed frozen chicks, which I get from a supplier. These chicks are vacume packed and arrive FROZEN at my door. Indigos *truly* love these things, and I notice a marked diffrence in my Adult couperi when I feed them...call it zeal if you will, but they really go after them. I feed adult Couperi no more than 3 chicks apiece at any given time,mainykl to prevent regurge in case there are temperature spikes in my area. Once you have had a drymarchon cough up a chick in the hot summer, you wont feed them heavily again.

Fish? I feed fish every 3 weeks, mainly because I am a glutten for punishment and a cage cleaning slave That, and I like to see them happy, and fish brings out the best in them. Again,I limit the amount of fish fed and err on the side of light feding with this food source. As Dean mentioned, Indigos fed chicks are messy, and I will say that Indigos fed FISH are down right FILTHY, but then we knew they weren't easily maintained snakes when we got into them, so it goes with the terrirtory.

What I never do is combine food items, i.e. when I feed fish, I JUST feed fish, when I feed chicks,I JUST feed chicks. One TYPE of prey item at a time. Females that have laid eggs get an ENTIRELY diffrent feeding schedule: they get very small meals of sub adult mice every 4 days, until they regain their body weight back. Laying/producing eggs takes an awfull out out of female Drymarchon. Males doing breeding season get a drastically slimmed down version of the adult diet mentioned above.

Juveniles- New born Easterns get anything they will accept...pinkies, lizards, fish, trout, amphibians, etc etc.Whatevedr elicits a feding response first is what they get until they will stubbronyl switch ti pinkies or fuzzy mice. I feed juveniles small meals every 4 days if at all possible.

My results this year have been rather unremarkable. I have had females lay clutches of eggs, and they still look great(Crosses fingers) and I have had other females lay eggs that came out larger than normal and oblong instead of spehrical, but they have yet to display yellow coloration or fungus, and they candle well. I have come to realize that even with all these eggs, I could end up with absolutely 0 Indigos produced this season, such is the reality of life. I just hope for the best. Because of everything that has transpired in my life,I am lucky to have gotten any eggs,let alone the blessings Ive had. Luckily no egg bound females at all, but most of them have had a year off, MAYBE that was a factor,who really knows?

To Dean,Doug,Carl, and Robert, and a host of other people here that work with these snakes, your work with these snakes inspired me to want to grow and expand into the diffrent types of Drymarchon,and I applaud your efforts.Keep up the good work, and best of luck in 2003 with your Drymarchon.

Sincerely,

Fredrick Albury

>What I will never do is combine food itemsand they candle wellexpand into the different types of Drymarchon

>what I will never do is combine food itemsand they candle wellexpand into the different types of Drymarchon

I guess you will never combine food items...to simulate how they eat in the wild? In regard to candling, I thought only beginners did that. Isn't all that extra, unnecessary handling of the eggs possibly detrimental to them? After all, you(a trained eye?) should be able to tell whether or not the eggs are viable within a month. In regard to your expansion into other types of Drymarchon...you mean there's Drys other than the Florida cribos? Is it okay to discuss them here on your "Eastern Indigo" forum?

Eastern Indigo Forum? Where does it say that?

It doesn't. That's what Fred called it in a previous post.

Oh, OK. I was just wondering. The tone of your post seemed, well...a little terse, or maybe a little sarcastic. Are you angry with someone or every one on this forum? I could see 3 possible reasons for the (perceived) tone of your comments:

1. You are angry with someone, or a little irritated or whatever by something someone said previously.

2. You truly didn't know if you could post about other Drymarchon than couperi on here. In that case, the answer is yes, and there are other Drymarchon besides the "Florida Cribos". If this is the case....well, then we've settled it. Also candling, if done properly isn't detrimental or dangerous to the eggs or the fetus inside and sometimes "seasoned experts" do it too. And, yeah...Fred would probably be considered an experienced, seasoned person that could tell to a fairly high degree of asccuracy if an egg is good or not without candling.

3. You are just trying to bait someone out for an argument without any good reasons. I really don't think that's the case here, because that would be juvenile, disruptive and counter-productive. Plus, that's normally reserved for the "activists" whackos of one sort or another that occasionally drop in to be disruptive and for teeny-bopper school kids with nothing else to do.

The other possibility, of course, is that I completely misinterpreted your post. I have done that before a time or two, I suppose. Anyway...not trying to piss anyone off here, I was just curious.

I see you are making friends all over the place on these forums. Although some of your comments are well taken and I am in agreement with some of your points, your tact leaves something to be desired. Anyway, I completely agree with Fred's comments. I, too, typically don't mix prey. In fact, one of my indigos will regurg if I do, so, I have made it a habit to rotate prey items and have had excellent success so far ; that is, mice one day, rats the next feeding, then quail, then bunnies and back to mice. No, its not a natural feeding regimen in some regards, however, keeping a snake in captivity isn't exactly a natural condition no matter how hard we try. And who mentioned anything about this being an exclusively eastern indigo forum?

there is absolutely nothing "beginner-like" in candling eggs for viability. You must not be experienced, or, just stirring trouble. Candling is probably the best way to determine if eggs are good or not. Sure, most of us who have been breeding for a while can usually tell if a snake egg is good or not but it isn't close to being 100% accurate.

If you say so, it must be true.

Fred did.

Well, you asked Deano!

Most bacteria, including Salmonella species, arent too affected by freezing conditions. It only has a bacteriostatic effect, so only stops bacterial growth while its in effect, so the little bastards start multiplying as soon as a thaw occurs. But then again the salmonella species and strains found in poultry wont necessarily affect a snake like it would a person, and vice versa. And even if it doesnt affect the snake outwardly, some strains that are known human pathogens could very well make snakes become temporary or chronic carriers and then possibly contaminate family members of the hobbyist involved. Of course all this is very theoretical, and cases of snake related Salmonella infections remain quite anecdotal, if you compare with cases related to iguanas and red eared sliders.

But as a hobbyist that keeps those big messy guys and that has had one of his daughters wind up in intensive care with a bad Salmonella infection in the past, Im more carefull with what I feed my snakes nowadays. No, the strain that infected my kid wasnt a match for what popped up in my collection, but its interesting to note the only positive culture for a Salmonella out of my collection came from one of my Drys. Even the box turtles were negative. It must be noted here that that strain cultured from the indigo was new to the national health authorities, so most probably a species/strain specific to Drymarchon couperi, and not a known human pathogen.

If ever someone else gets one of their Drys cultured, it would be interesting to know if it was the same strain, so please feel free to post about this matter if it concerns you.

Thanks,

DR.Phil

I was afraid that may be the case.

I always handle f/t chicks like raw chicken just to be safe from any threat of HUMAN contamination. Altough I've never had any problems with the animals that I know of...now you've got me thinking of boiling or microwaving the chicks to kill the little bastards. hmmm....wonder if the snakes would eat them that way?

Who am I kidding, of course they would. They'd probably eat them with barbeque sauce if they were hungry.

Trouble is...the wife puts up with a lot as it is...she may just draw the line at boiling or microwaving chicks in the kitchen

While trying to quickly warm up some fuzzies I accidentally boiled them. Indigo's ate them up. Boiled fuzzies smell like chicken

Tastes like chicken too!LOL

Why not feed different items on same feeding??

And Fred, Good Lord, you actually feed fish to adult Indigos?! You are a true glutton for Drymarchon revenge!!!!CG
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Carl W Gossett
Garage Door Herps
Monument,Colorado...northern territory of the Great Republic of Texas

I had an old floridian tell me an indigo used to come eat his dogs food. His house was in a very wild area of Florida. Buddy.