Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Today, I thought why not try something new, so I offered a pre-killed Pigeon to one my Saboga boas. Seems she really liked it...

I added some frozen quail on to a feeder order and all the snakes agreed they were tasty.
A friend had boas and burmese that he fed only whole chickens. He got them for free from a friend of his dads. As the chickens grew their feed is raised higher from the ground. Birds that don't grow quickly enough to reach it are culled out. My friend would walk through and do that. He had a freezer dedicated to just that he would fill. The chicken part of it was pretty gross. The resulting snake feces was larger than you get from using feeder mammals but was light as a feather. Really, it was quite strange how it was so much lighter than I was used to.
It is either sad, funny, or both the memories you build up in this hobby.

"Birds that don't grow quickly enough to reach it are culled out." I guess the alternative isn't much better either. Now if I could just break my McNugget addiction.

I've heard that the feces from feeding birds to a boa is really disgusting. I can't remember if the person said in what way it was different (or perhaps I didn't want to ask), just that it was nasty. Can you confirm this? I've toyed with the idea of tossing a pigeon or two here and there but never wanted the resulting nasty poo!

Thanks for the insight!
jb

I've fed pigeons, ringneck doves, and other birds to various snakes. The really disgusting droppings are from day-old chicks. Droppings from adult birds are lighter and dustier than droppings from rats and rabbits but not bad otherwise.

I prefer to kill the birds and take the wings off at the elbow to get rid of the big flight feathers.

Paul Hollander

I have used avian prey items on MANY occasions for many different types of snakes. The stool is definitely looser and stinkier for SURE.

Most non feeding Boid's will immediately except a chick or quail as a first food when they refuse rodents of all types. They are NOT stubborn feeders in my opinion, just a bunch of stubborn keepers (we know best) making an animal eat an alien domestic food animal. I use f/t rodents,rabbits,GP, and some avian prey items.

I would advice adding some rodents in the feeding to tame the stool.

One problem that could arise is the snake could get imprinted on the avian prey item and no longer accept rodent prey, this has happened to me twice out of 100's of times using avian prey.

But the snake does not have "poor" muscle tone from a 6 year all avian diet, but the feces is much looser and it does smell ALOT worse. Not to bad with BOIDS, but give this diet to a Pine snake and you WILL know from 3 rooms away there is a difference.

And if you use adult birds they crap out the quills as well....chia...crap LOL

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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

I actually LOL (laugh out loud), but when I read "chia crap", that was FRIGGIN FUNNY! Thanks for the info, and thanks even more for the laugh!

jb

>>I actually LOL (laugh out loud), but when I read "chia crap", that was FRIGGIN FUNNY! Thanks for the info, and thanks even more for the laugh!
>>
>>jb
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Thanks,

Frank Roberts

I used to feed some of my oldest boas with quails as an additional prey. I can remember that consistence and smell of feces was way different, but I wouldn't say it was stinky.

Adam

in a way...
A few hours after the female ate that Pigeon, the male started to copulate her (I closly confirmed this). Both copulation and ejaculation have been observed. Its funny: they have never shown any courtship or sexual interest before, but now they jumped into the middle. I cross my fingers...