Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Does anybody ever feed anything besides mice and rats? They can't possibly eat only rodents in the wild (especially not mice or rats). Hampsters being served I've seen pictures of and I've read about gerbils. What about say a chick, prekilled, or crickets? Do they eat eggs of other animals like some snakes?

I'm pretty sure they will not eat crickets at any age although some pet stores that sell them may not even know this.

I did hear a reliable account once of an escaped ball python catching and eating fish out of a tank which I found pretty odd. Whether they regularly eat anything other than warm blooded prey in the wild I don't know but doubt.

I'm also not sure about eggs although many North American snakes will eat them when they get the chance so I suppose it would not be that surprising.

If my python were loose and near my fish it would probably get eatten and not the other way around

i am almost a hundred percent sure that bp's will not eat eggs. In the wild Bp's live in burrows of other small mammals (mice) and would probably find any available eggs. Plus BPs are pretty chubby and are not very arboreal...
There are specific types of snakes that specifically eat eggs ( i think there may still be some in the classifieds....
But mice, gerbils, hamsters, chicks are all good. actually my BP is big enough to eat small rats!
Good question though-bpg

You might want to be careful feeding live hamster or gerbils...they can be very agressive believe me. I have a Syrian hamster, when I first brought her home, I proceeded right away in handling her iorder to try to tame it. I put my hand in and the next thing I know, she was screaming and jumped at mine hand. She scared me to death. I give her food everyday now and she is used to me...she even come to greet me when I open the cage to take the food bowl out to give her her daily ration of food. Once I had kid who wanted to hold her and she wasn't use to her and she squeal...she didn't do that with me, though, or at least that kid was holding her to tightly. I've never had any problem with untamed rats.