Reptile & Amphibian Forums

What is the general consensus about feeding our drys road kill? If you either hit a snake or other animal of prey size or witness someone else hit something, is it ok to feed it to your animals. Should you freeze it for a month or so to kill parasites. of course there is the legal ramifications of having the proper license etc for collecting. Just wondering if anyone is or has done this. Jack

I have a female BCC that ate quite alot of roadkill and she is 15 years old 10.5' and 50 or so lbs. She has eaten anything roadkill from Cats to Squirrels.....The previous owner froze the dead animals for quite some time before feeding. I personally wouldn't do it, just because I have a great rodent supply in my garage and dealing with dead carcasses isn't too fun....unless they are rats from my garage Also I might be worried about something your freezer won't or didn't kill......

I've thought about the idea of feeding road kill. After all, its free, and there is an amazing variety out there. However, there are several points against it:

Obviously, there is the problem of parasites that could impact your snake. Freezing at 30 deg. F may not kill a lot of cysts, egges, and spores. A deep freeze at 0 deg. F would be better.

Another potential hazard to your snakes is the possibility that a dead animal has been poisoned, and just happened to expire on the road, or got hit because it was so sick it couldn't escape. This could be disasterous.

There is also the problem of potential exposure to pathogens that could hurt you. For example, raccoons, skunks, cats, and other carnivors can carry rabis virus. Rodents like rats squirrels, chucks and rabbits can carry things like plague, hanta virus and tuellerimia (sp?).

There's the risk that by stopping on the side of a road, you may cause or be involved in a traffic accident.

Local police, sheriffs, troopers, etc. may find your activities suspicious and hassel you.

Game laws must be obeyed. Recntly Tennessee passed a state law making it ok to pick up roadkill - thus becoming the butt of numerous jokes. However, Game Officers still frown on this, especially if you have something out-of-season or protected.

Finally, what'er ya gonna do if ya pick it up, put it in tha back and hit the road - but turns out it ain't quite dead yet?

As for me, I treat roadkill is if its made of leaverite.

As in, "Leaverite chair."

JOhn D
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I am so not lesdysxic!

0.1 Creamsicle Cornsake "Yolanda"
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake "Steely Dan"
0.1 Desert Kingsnake "FATTY"
0.1 Black Rat (WV Rescue) "Roberta"

You made alot of great points...especially about the poisoning of roadkill......

I know several folks who have and continue to feed their animals road kill, but I have an amazing variety of prey available without resorting such. Besides, I live in Arkansas and new residents from up north stare with a degree of nervousness when you stop and jump out of your vehicle for road kill! ;0)
Another point worth mentioning, freezing is bacteriostatic, not bacteriocidic, menaing it slows the growth of bacteria, but doesn't completely eradicate such...

Best regards,

Jeff
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Jeff Snodgres
University of Arkansas
snodgresjeffreys@uams.edu
501.603.1947

>>Another point worth mentioning, freezing is bacteriostatic, not bacteriocidic, menaing it slows the growth of bacteria, but doesn't completely eradicate such...
>>
>>Best regards,
>>
>>Jeff

Absolutely correct! I thought it was something like that. Has to be, otherwise frozen food would never go bad after thawing! One of those general sanitary rules-of-thumb says to never re-freeze food, as it promotes faster spoilage.

Cheers,

John D

P.S. Hey Jeff - Any word on Black-Tail-No-Nose?
jpd
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I am so not lesdysxic!

0.1 Creamsicle Cornsake "Yolanda"
1.0 Bairds Ratsnake "Steely Dan"
0.1 Desert Kingsnake "FATTY"
0.1 Black Rat (WV Rescue) "Roberta"

ROADKILL.

The very word evokes scenes of carnage and smell.
As if either of these things is foreign to someone that keeps Indigos. . . . .

My oldest Indigo, CADILLAC (*R.I.P.*) was fed road kill from a store owner that had him for quite a few years before I got ahold of him. This store owner was a "thrifty" sort and didnt hesitate to pick up little critters that had expired along our nations highways and roads and feed them to his pet"Indigo".

Needless to say,"Caddie" didnt get the extensive road kill nemu after he came to me. in fact his fare was pretty dull, by comparison: Mice, rats, bunnies and occasionally *FISH* No birds....no kittens...no puppies....and no roadkill(Okay...a rattler every now and then, but just for educational purposes I swear.........)

Most of the time,I would only feed him mice and rats that came from people that practiced good sanitation in their rodent colonies. Excellent sanitation.

Do I think the roadkill hurt him?

Honestly...no. But, with the increased bacteria count, poisoning that was mentioned earler, and overall weirdness of collecting dead animals off the road(As if me going snake hunting wasnt "weird enough" I choose to pass on the road kill buffet. After all, I am the guy you see stopping to check on owls that have been hit by cars and pulling baby pssums out of their car struck dead mothers pouches(To be raised by caretakers...they arent pinkies!) so how would it look if I just switched and made those animals that got hit my potential food supply?

Now....if I had an adult Retic....maybe road killed deer might be a potential prospect.........

LOL

Fred Albury
Southern Calif...

what a question.You spend all that time and money on a endangered species and now you have the brainstorm of feeding "roadkills", LOL parasites are are born survivors and freezing will not kill all of them. gods teeth man, get some rats and raise them or sell your indigo to a responsible person