Reptile & Amphibian Forums

the other day i went into a pet store i'd never been into. i noticed their mice were cheap and picked a few up. i asked if they sold frozen mice and the guy who worked there told me that they did not because there was no nutritional value in frozen rodents. he said the freezing process takes away most of the nutrients and whatnot. he lectured me for like 5 minutes about it.

i've been feeding my snakes f/t rodents for over two years, and lurking in the background on various snake forums for over a year, and i've never heard of that before.

any ideas? do frozen rodents have less nutritional value than live/prekilled?

thanks in advance

I would be kind of interested in hearing what he has to say about frozen rodents having no nutritional value... If that is true, then 95% of the food we eat has no nutritional value... frozen meat, frozen veggies... It is actually the cooking of the meat that causes a loss in nutritional value, so unless you are tossing your rats on the BBQ for your snakes, I'm sure your ok.

n/p

I like this reply the best so far lol
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2.5.0 ball python
1.1.0 100% het pied
1.0.0 Blond Pastel
0.1.0 Spider
1.1.0 columbian boa
1.0.0 rat snake (alabastered)
1.1.0 corn snake
0.1.0 Chuckwalla (Jamie)
0.0.2 Bearded Dragon
0.0.1 crested gecko
1.0.0 leopord gecko
4.0.0 Quaker parrot (Woody)(Liam)
1.0.0 Landseer Newfoundland (Mac/Newfy)
0.0.5 whites tree frog (trevor, kirmet)
3.2.0 cats (rockie, bs, brownie, lerrado, kole)
1.3.0 kids (dilyen, dakota, chyanne, sierra)
Brian n Chrissy

"snakes are kind of like potato chips, you cant have just one"

If frozen food didn't have any nutritional value...
There wouldn't be any Eskimos.

DeMak

Sounds like somebody trying to rationalize feeding live. Probably gets off on it and doesn't want to admit it to himself so he makes up this rationalization that its healthier.

I am thinking you are correct in that he is just rationalizing feeding live. I have a local exotic pet store that sells live feeders and only feeds their animals live. You should have seen the look on their faces when I told them I feed only f/t. It was the "I am going to lose business if others do the same" look. He didn't give me the nutritional value claim but did give other excuses why I should feed live - all were bogus.

I still buy feeders from them when I am in a pinch but only to vacuum pack and freeze them for later in the week. I do not want my animals getting used to eating anything but f/t.

Bart

That's BS, there has to be some nutritional value or the many, many folks who feed only F/T would all have dead snakes.

That said, I do believe there are pro's and con's for both:

F/T IMO does reduce the nutritional value. And it might not be the actual F/T part, just that the food is now hours since death. I feed F/K only. I have my own rodent colony and am able to manage it to my needs. Everyone always tells me how healthy my snakes are and I think it's due in part to the F/K food. My feeders are only seconds dead prior to being fed to the snakes. Each individually whacked.

Freezing will kill off some parasites and other microbial entities in the feeders. Could some of those microbes be beneficial to the snake? In all honesty I don't know the answer. What I do know is my collection is thriving under my care which includes F/K food.
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
13.24 BRB
12.14 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

I agree with you Dave, I have large rodent colonies. I feed them the best diet I know of and feed them live or P/K to my snakes.

Pic of my last o6 albino Sonoran Gopher.

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1.1 Albino Sonoran Gopher
2.0 W.C. Sonoran Gopher
1.1 Red Bull Snake
1.1 San Diego Gophers (het albino applegate)
2.2 Leucistic Texas ratsnake
1.1 "White Oak" ratsnake
2.3 W.C Okeetee Corn
1.2 Abbt line Okeetee Corn
1.0 Reverse Okeetee Corn
0.1 Creamsicle Corn
1.2 W.C Miami Phase Corn
1.1 Sinaloan Milk
1.0 Albino Honduran Milk
0.1 Anery Honduran Milk
1.1 W.C Mexican Black King
0.2 C.B Mexican Black King
2.0 W.C Cal King
1.1 C.B Cal King
0.1 Durango Mountain King
1.0 Desert King
1.3 Northern pine
1.1 N.J White pine
2.5 Black pine
1.2 Louisiana Pine
0.2 kankakee Bull
2.3 Bearded Dragon
0.0.40 Red Eye Tree frogs
7 Tanks full with African Cichlids.
Many Mice, Rats and feeder Roaches

"Each individually whacked"

Nope, this is the best reply!

It's possible he heard that frozen food loses SOME of it's nutritional value and misunderstood, or the story changed in the retelling before it got to him.

Print out this picture and take it to him. Tell him this snake hasn't been fed live in 7 1/2 years and has only occasionally been fed fresh killed, the last time being maybe 3 years ago. Ask him how this snake is still alive.

She's 8 1/2 feet and about 38 pounds in the picture, taken about 10 months ago. She just hit the 9 foot mark and is about 45 pounds now.
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What goes up must come down...unless it exceeds escape velocity.

I think it's bull s***. Frozen does have nutritional value. Just take a look at LarryF's beautiful snake. I feed mine live but only because she doesn't like to eat f/t. The only downside to frozen is that if your snake ever got out, they would not survive in the wild. My friend has a Calif. King who fed it f/t. for 8 yrs. He fed it live and the snake would miss. It took 45min. to finally wrap around the mouse but the mouse was able to escape. So we took out the live, gave it to mine, and fed his f/t.

Technically, freezing DOES destroy about half of the enzymes in meat that help the digestion of the food. I always fed my snakes f/k, but becuase I didn't have space in my freezer for frozen snake food... And the longer frozen, the further the nutrients and enzymes break down (same as the longer dead...) Thus, feed f/k if you can since they get more nutrition out of them (in general, able to grow more for the amount of food), but it's not too big of a deal as long as you are feeding them regularly. If they are healthy, don't worry too much!

~Buggzter
2:1 Collered lizards
1:1 Veiled Chameleons
0:1 Toddlers
0:0:1 dwarf boas (had to give to friend)
1:1 ball pythons (ditto)