Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all!
Whether probably to feed boas only by birds (not rodents)? Chickens, female quails, hens, nestlings of songbirds (for baby boas). I heard, that from such diet painting of boas becomes better. Whether there are here problems, except for the price? I would appreciate any opinions
Thanks all
Tim
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1.0 Cornsnake Normal (`07)
0.1 BCI Normal (`07)
1.1 BCC Guyana (`08; WC`03-06)
1.0 BCI Hypo Salmon (`08)

i am sure others will chime in...but i think some birds carry deseases.
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www.myinfoservice.com

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signature file edited; contact an admin. phw 7/19/05

First off, you'll want to purchase your birds from a reputable breeder to avoid disease complications.

I would also suggest that you hold off on trying to switch all of your boas (and any other snakes you may have) over to an all bird diet. Instead, you might want to purchase a small quantity of feeder birds and only offer them to a select few snakes.

The reasons I suggest this are first off to avoid a potentially costly learning experience. (What if none of your boas will accept the birds? Buying too many would leave you with a large expense that wouldn't be worth it in the end.)

The second reason is that from my past personal experience as well as that of a couple snake keeper friends feeding birds has resulted in a significant increase in fecal odor as well as a much runnier consistency of the fecal matter.

I've only tried birds with pythons and that was years ago. I was using chicken hatchlings that a friend had hatched for this very purpose. It only took a couple feedings before I abandoned the idea altogether.

The friends that have tried birds fed the same chicken hatchlings to various boa and larger colubrid species with similar results.

Now, it could have been the chickens that we were feeding that made the bowel movements runny and smelly and it could be that with a different bird species (I think quail is commonly offered by frozen feeder suppliers) or with a different diet offered to the birds before they are fed to the snakes may give better results. I don't know, but these are my experiences that you may want to take into consideration first.

Check out the feeder forum - you may get a few more replies over there concerning this.
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Stay United!

"...I say 'apparently' because despite all our progress she is not at all a tame or handle-able snake and gettting her from that cage would re-start a war.. and we've had a good armistice for several months now."-Gus Rentfro - I love this quote!

Thank you for the detailed answer!
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1.0 Cornsnake Normal (`07)
0.1 BCI Normal (`07)
1.1 BCC Guyana (`08; WC`03-06)
1.0 BCI Hypo Salmon (`08)