Reptile & Amphibian Forums

(Are you still in Arizona? Last time I was active in this forum you were, you had amazing stories to tell about field research.)

Recently, a concern arose over a feeding issue involving a growth or tumor of a mouse.

The mouse pinkie had one leg deformed due to some type of abnormal growth. The kingsnake owner was inclined to buy the pinkie to end its suffering quickly, and as a favor to the pet store staff.

The concern was about a predator eating a tumor or growth. Will it be destroyed during digestion? Will it adversely affect the predator in any way? Does this matter WHICH type of predator is involved?

You've had incredible field experience and now many Herpers. Maybe you have some insight into this topic. What are your comments? Would you hesitate to feed the "damaged" prey to your snake??

Actually I just got back from the field. I have never had a problem with deformed or mice with tumors, effecting a snake or lizard (that consumes it), in any way.

In the old days, we bred colored mice and they were very prone to tumors. If these lifed long enough, nearly all got some sort of tumor. We simply fed them off to the snakes.

These days, I breed white mice, a swiss cross I believe. They rarely get tumors. We are producing about 5 or 6 thousand mice a week and we only see a handfull with tumors a year.

So my experience says, I would not worry about it. Cheers

A tumor can not effect the predator. It is just protein and gets broken down along with everything else. The preys defective DNA has no effect on whatever eats it.

Predators survive by picking off the weak and unhealthy, they are made for it.

Predators do feed on the weak but "unhealthy" in my mind infers something else. Weak, to me, primarily means prey that is younger, older or somehow injured. I'm not trying to suppose that wild animals don't get sick but I would say that something (a predator) generally takes them out before they are completely overcome by an illness. A deer being taken down by a pack of wolves because a small tumor in its leg slowed it down is hugely different from feeding a snake mice from a colony that routinely produces large tumors.

Hi, So what are you saying? Do you have experience that indicates there ARE problems with snakes consuming rodents with tumors?

You see, that is the question, I was asked if I saw any problems, and in over forty years, I have not seen any adverse effects.

Have you? Please understand, this is a real question. We all understand that under some theoretical situation, problems "could" occur, but HAVE they in reality. Thanks

In direct answer, no I have not seen any problems from this but then I don't feed my animals tumor ridden prey items. Even if I did I recognize that there are limits to my powers of observation. I would always advise to use the best feeders possible. Doing otherwise is justification pure and simple.

So you think folks have to justify feeding off an occasional mouse that has a tumor. I am thinking not.

There is no need for any thought process what so ever, just feed the dang thing off and be done with it. Its not like they all have tumors. Guezzzzzzy

I've also been in the snake "game" going on 41 years now, and during that time, I too have fed off many tumored mice to snakes over the years for whatever reason(old breeders, etc...). Of course I haven't made a strict habit of deliberately feeding a given snake ONLY mice with tumors throughout it's entire life, and certainly have made no controlled study of this, but I can definitely say that I have seen no ill effects from ever feeding an occasional mouse with a tumor.

If a snake can ingest venom with no ill effects(unless the stomach is ulcerated) then I don't see a problem with an occasional tumored mouse. I think it just "seems" very unappealing to most people.

~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

That's one helluva stunning Cali.K!!

Indeed!

For the Cal. King compliment!......

I got that 50/50 MANY years ago, when they where very uncommon and(and pricey). I spent the ENTIRE afternoon at the International Reptile Expo when it was in Orlando looking for the cleanest, most pure white, most jet black, with lightest skin between the scales, and whitest belly(no cream color). After many hours, and looking at quite a few 50/50's, I finally found one that really "fit the bill", she was pretty expensive then, but was well worth it. When I later bred her to a great looking male 50/50 I already had, they produced some AWESOME looking offspring. A good "snake friend" of mine later bought some of the neonates, and said they were the nicest 50/50's he'd ever seen.........indeed they were!

best regards, ~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

The gator had a tumor.

LOL!!,.......yes, when the radical tumor cells grow uncontrolably into exploding alligators, you know there is a problem!....hahahaa!!

I remember that "exploding" Burmese pic well, it "etched" itself into the minds of millions like the battle of Godzilla and Rodan!!!

~Doug

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"Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to open mouth and remove any doubt!"

Guezzzzzzy is right! I'm not saying anyone is wrong here but tossing tutored mice isn't going to hurt anything either. The way I see keeping snakes is you provide them the best you can and that includes providing the best quality feed possible. Don't know why you take issue with a standard higher than just good enough.

Your answering the wrong question is all. The question was not about standards, or your specific personal veiw. The question was simple. Does consuming mice with tumors cause any sort of harm to snakes. My experience was NO, no harm for doing that. That is your answer too, is it not?

About your view of, feed the best possible food. hahahahahaha I wonder what the best possible food is, and how you would judge that.

To me, your simply making up silly guidelines to placate yourself and maybe others. How do you determine what is best? I have always used results to judge husbandry or parts of husbandry such as diet.

I have had exteme superior results using mice(including ones with tumors) But I really cannot say mice are the best diet. I think it works well, tumors or not, but mostly its convient for most keepers.

So in the end, it bothers you because you think a mouse with a tumor is NOT THE BEST and the snakes deserve more. SO I ask again, what proof do you have that a mouse with a tumor is LESS THEN a normal mouse????????????????

In lieu of our ignorance, a tumored mouse could just as easily be, MORE THEN a normal mouse. In reality, its mostly no different. The rest is in your head. Cheers

"Does consuming mice with tumors cause any sort of harm to snakes. My experience was NO, no harm for doing that. That is your answer too, is it not?"

No it is not! Not having experienced or discerned that feeding unhealthy mice is a problem is far cry from saying there isn't one.

Again, I don't have enough information or experience to answer this question definitively and neither do you. The primary difference here is that you are overconfident and fail to recognize the deficiency.

The prudent thing is to take the $.50 loss and toss the questionable mouse. Results may not improve but they wont be any worse either. Prudent does not = silly.

Frank, I never disagreed that protein is protein and didn’t respond to or disagree with your original post in this thread. I simply pointed out that there is a difference between a wild predator feeding on weak prey and feeding a captive predator a prey item that is completely overcome with illness.

First, the question was, A MOUSE WITH A TUMOR, not unhealthy mice. You keep wiggling and changing this to FIT YOUR OWN PERSONAL NEEDS. A MOUSE WITH A TUMOR.

You REALLY can simply answer the question and not have to add your personal prejudices. So your answer is NO, you have not seen any harm from feeding a mouse or to stretch the question, some mice with tumors to snakes. Sir Tony, that is the answer and that is the only answer, to that question.

To make it clear, you know, your prejudice, all you have to state is, If it were me, I would throw that mouse out and feed one without tumors. No one could argue with that.

Personally, I am a mouse breeder and I feed culls off to my reptiles on a regular basis and I still recieve superior results. If I saw problems, I would stop doing that particular practice.

Thankfully, the strain I am breeding is not tumor prone. So maybe I feed off 20 or so a year to several hundred reptiles, mostly monitors and some snakes.

A side note, many of us old timers had an odd practice, we kept what we called a garbage snake, you know, an individual or individuals of a common species that we fed the garbage too. Such things are tumored mice or rotten mice, or reguritated, etc. Its common knowledge that these garbage snakes never suffered a problem and were often our heathyist individuals.

Lastly about wild snakes, I have seen them feed on things I would never ever feed to my captives. But then, thats a whole different ball of wax isn't it? Cheers

I'm not the one with the problem Frank other than that I engaged you when I should know better.

First, my initial response was to Zac. Zac used wild predators “picking off the weak and unhealthy” to validate that feeding tumored mice was OK. It was Zac who first used unhealthy. I responded that, “Predators do feed on the weak but "unhealthy" in my mind infers something else.” Note that I wasn’t trying to answer Ameron’s question. I was simply making the point that “unhealthy” is different than weak. That was my point. Sorry you missed it!

You then pushed me for an answer to Ameron’s question and this is where things got twisted. I quote you as saying, “I was asked if I saw any problems” but you were not asked that. Ameron specifically asked, “Will it adversely affect the predator in any way?” My answer, because I do not feed tumored mice to my snakes, remains the same. I do not know if it would adversely affect the predator or not. When in doubt, just throw it out.

Your answer is different based on a different set of experiences. While I would agree that feeding the odd tumored mouse is not likely to cause a problem, fact of the matter is we just don’t know with certainty. “Adversely affect the predator in any way” explicitly implies a lot more than what you or anyone else here sees as successful. Semantics perhaps but true none the less.

I am not the problem. The problem is, folks not answering or responding to the question asked.

Instead, respond with something else all together.

Its simple enough, you said, you never seen anything bad from what was mentioned.

Then you add, you think WE all should feed the best. Hmmmmmmm what is the best then? And how do you judge that. Cheers

Conversations evolve Frank. Get over it.