Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Vitamins/Supplement Question

I usually just read the posts here and I try to reserve my questions to topics that I have yet to find a solid answer for. So here goes:

I am interested in keeping my herps as healthy as possible. I am considering injecting my f/t feeders with supplements before I "serve" them. Does anybody have any thoughts or suggestions?

By the way, I am the guy that posted the "Established BPS" question below (last week). I picked up 2 beautiful, 2 ½ year old, 4 foot Ball Pythons from a guy who was joining the Navy. He parted with them for $100. I jumped on it and I could not be happier. They are completely tame and healthy and I have only noticed 2 oddities about them:

1. They like to soak in their water bowls for what I consider to be a long time, 2-3 hours a day.
2. They were raised in the same enclosure from birth and they are totally inseparable. I do not have any plans to breed normal BPs so I am not too worried about their “relationship”. They actually seem VERY affectionate towards each other. I have fed them once already in separate containers and when I finally put them back together they snuggled up with one another instantly. It was kind of “cute”. (If I dare use that word to describe snakes) I have read many posts about housing snakes together and I am only doing it because I am afraid of sending them into some sort of separation anxiety stress?!?

Any thoughts or suggestions are always GREATLY appreciated!

Jonathan
Aka Tyler’s Dad

1.0 Bearded Dragon
1.2 Corn Snakes
1.1 Ball Pythons
0.1 Shih Tzu
1.0 Children
0.1 Wife
My Herp Page

ball pythons do not require additional supplements. They should be getting all of their nutrition from rodent feedings.

I remember seeing somewhere a case for snakes having skin that rips easily when fed rodents that where feed diets deficient of some vitamin. Can anyone point me to that?

I'm thinking it was an extreme case of poor rodent feeding but I recently had a couple scales separate on the head of my favorite female ball as I was pulling off a stuck shed after soaking (I think I've finally fixed the over ventilated cage now). I'm not sure what could be to blame but am interested in the subject and also if the spray on vitamins are worth anything at all. Maybe I'll just gut load my feeders with high quality food for a few hours before feeding just to be safe.