Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have found someone to purchase mice from. I am quite confident he is reliable, but have never heard of this before: shortly before dispatching his mice, he gives them a multi-vitamin. Apparently this vitamin provides the snake with a more nutritious meal. He uses a vitamin that has no iron, but I still wonder if a BP can get too much of a good thing. It sounds like a great idea in theory, but I would still like some advice from the more experienced keepers in here.

Waddaya think?
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James.....
"Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought the beast back."

I know people that keep lizards do something similar. They feed the insects a gutload to make them more nutritious. I think there was a thread on here recently about injecting the F/T prey with vitamins, too.

Hope this helps,
Shelly

The same thing can be accomplished by just giving the rodents a high quality diet throughout their lives...The multi-vitamin sounds like just a quick cheat for giving the mice a substandard diet (such as just dog food) and then giving them a quick boost before death for the hopeful benefit of the snake.

Much like gutloading crickets, mealworms, and waxworms for other reptiles, gutloading rodents also has benefits. If you gutload with nutritious food, there's no way to overdo it. You're right, there might be something of concern with giving the rodents a vitamin boost, but if they are gutloaded with fruits and veggies...how can you go wrong?

I'd just check what vitamins he's giving the rodents and keep an eye on the snakes. If they start acting funny, then obviously the vitamin was a bit much.

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

dog food sub-standard?.....

......why......my lab blocks are from fish based proteins.......dog food is from other meat or meat by-products and all kinds of stuff......soybean and corn and yeast in both maybe....

lab chow 18 % protein and 6% fat............dog food is like 21% protein and not much different on fat I guess...I forget....haven't looked in awhile.....

.........good mice are good mice........

......people try and feed them table scraps and old stale food items.....they have troubled mice......

.....as for vitamins????????/ depends on what vitamins he uses.......sounds odd........and if it's just vitamins that taste badly?.the mice won't eat it anyways.....

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Lab chow also has other nutrients in it other than just protein and fat. Rats are omnivores, not carnivores, and dog food just doesn't cover all the bases for an animal that eats many more grains and greens than a dog does.

I remember you saying your rotate all your breeders and such out at 6 months anyway, so in your case, I doubt you'd notice much of a difference between good lab blocks (I'm talking about something like Mazuri) and dog food. The rodents grow and produce, the snakes eat them and grow and produce, so things with your collection must work just fine.

I just breed "fancy" rats as pets as well as caring for my snakes, and I've noticed a difference in the overall health of my rats when they're on a better diet. Since you are what you eat, it stands to reason that healthier rats and mice provide better meals for the snakes.

Just saying.

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

I know........

dog food is made up of all kinds of stuff besides meat......all kinds of grains just like lab chow.......

rodents eat whatever they can find....

yes..I rotate......and breed for numbers.....

I breed fancy mice.....snakes say they taste the same........

I actually need more fancy stuff.......haven't had good mice in awhile ,,they all get mixed into the mutts.........right now I have alot of blues I am working with ........trying to weed out poodle gene more and more..should have not bred them back into the mix.......I haven't seen some stuff in years........ever see super blacks anymore???........

anyways.......I feed corn and oats and dog and lab chow......different mix everyday....keeps them happy and not as bored I think........?.......the chow is Zeigler's..........

.....anyways.....I think dog food is ok........or all the dogs would be sick?........

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Dog food is for dogs, of course the dogs won't get sick. They just need a different animal protein to animal protein to grain, etc, ratio than a rat does. Yes, rats eat whatever they can find...but wild rats, the ones eating anything they can find, rarely live over a year and are often incredibly diseased and sick, even though they do mate and produce babies.

I have poodle rats

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

What is a "poodle rat"?

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T. West
Email
Ball Pythons Python regius
Dumeril's Boas Boa dumerili
European legless Lizard Ophisaurus apodus
Pueblan Milksnake Lampropeltis Triangulum Campbelli
California Kingsnake Lampropeltis getulus californiae
Bearded Dragons Pogona Vitticeps
Leopard Geckos Eublepharis Macularis
Brazilian Rainbow Boas Epicrates cenchria cenchria
Snapping Turtles Chelydra serpentina
Alligator Snapper Macrochelys temminckii
American Bullfrog Rana catesbieana
Rats
Mice
Super Worms
Meal Worms

>>What is a "poodle rat"?

A joke I breed rex rats, which have curly fur, which is about the closest to a poodle a rat can get.

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

around here they call the curly mice poodles......and rats also at times.........rex and hairless and those half and half bred that have a name but I forget it.........steel blues, powder blues,dumbos,all kinds of odd colors and all.......

....I know of people that will take a sick rat to the vet and get it healed, pay like $40 , $70 ,,,maybe more to heal it........we just take them to Dr Freezer or Python regius I guess........they called me morbid.........I thanked her.......

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Hehe. I've been called the same thing for the same reason.

The half hairless, half rex rats are actually homozygous for the rex gene, and called 'patchwork rex'. The colors I'm working with are the powder and slate blues. I know someone who spent $300 on shipping to get rats of a certain color with pedigrees.

*giggling*

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire

now it's getting funny..........

wild rats are incredibly sick and diseased.......?

yea...that's why they went extinct........wait.......that's why they populated every place on earth.....Norway rats just won't die....wild rats are better than lab rats at times.......and they live less than a year only if a redtail hawk eats them or another predator.........if available they eat all animal matter above plant matter.......and they look good not skanky like in the movies......in the movies with rats they just wet them down with baby oil and rub the hair backwards to make them look wild,sick,and crazy

anyways........yes lab chow is better than dog food for rats.........you win.........wow.........

but the hundreds of people breeding rats with dog food only diet will really be amazed if they find out.......LOL

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If they're so healthy and disease free, why don't you catch one and integrate it into your breeding stock? I'm sure its hardiness will improve your lines

I win! What do I win?

~jenny
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"Polysyllabism in no way insures that what you're saying is actually worth being heard." - Blake (an e-friend of mine)

"I have never made but one prayer to god, a very short one: "O lord, make my enemies ridiculous." And he granted it." - Voltaire