Reptile & Amphibian Forums

UP late tonight feeding hatchlings...here's a new scenting medium that is working pretty good on it's 1st run...

Amour Brand Vienna Sausage Original flavor...

Ate the sausages...

froze the water it was canned with, then thawed it tonight and used it..working amazingly well.

Just passing it along

Try it and tell me how well it works!!
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

Just so I am clear, you had some non-eaters that refused to eat pinkies at all and you dipped the pinkies in this sausage juice and they ate those?
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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

yep..out of about 30 half ate right away...couple off the tongs LOL

See if it works for you..gotta be lot healthier and safer than frog or some other type of WC scent
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

I was told that tuna juice and I think Spam worked as well. Although I have tried neither.
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Chris & Alliey
www.bloodyleopard.com
E-mail Us

Just tried 6 poor feeders on Hotdog water, within 5 minutes 4 have fed -)
nice tip justin

Well, that's yet another human food item to add to the list of possible scenting items.

One of the other odd things I read mentioned a while back I believe on a different forum was that someone was using Kentucky Fried Chicken skin to rub on the pinkies and his previously non-eating snakes went berserk for it.

Personally, I would only considering using something processed like that as a totally last resort if even force feeding wasn't working out which in my eyes would be a kind of end of the road ordeal anyways.

What intrigues me though is why you believe that using processed foods such as cooked sausage juice would "be (a) lot healthier and safer than frog or some other type of WC scent". What makes you ultimately draw this conclusion? Surely mother nature has provided these animals with the right tools and design to eat frogs and toads in the wild anyways as part of their normal diet, not KFC chicken grease or cooked sausage juice. While it might entice them to eat, and that's typically a good thing, I question whether all that grease and other ingredients, something they would never encounter in the wild, would be detrimental to their health over the long run or even perhaps the short haul.

Sure, I understand that this method might only be used a limited number of times just to get them to eat. But I might also believe that feeding a baby snake might be somewhat comparable to that of a baby human child. We don't start of feeding our children the majority of the items we consume as their body's cannot properly digest these items. I would kind of make the assumption that this might also be true of hatchlings as the items at their disposal typically have to be of the same size that they can handle which would probably result in them eating mainly items that differ significantly than those of adults such as insects.

Now there's been many debates on the health factors on feeding pinky mice to certain species of baby snakes anyways, especially hognose which do not typically feed on pinkies, but that's a debate that most of us are well aware of and one I don't wish to divert this conversation towards.

But again, I have to wonder about the effects of ingested processed and sometimes greasy foods in relation to the overall health of hatchling reptiles. I welcome all constructive thoughts on this matter.

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Troy Rexroth
Rextiles

great question...this is why.
it is free of parasites..bacteria..virus..contamination etc...to the point that it is considered sterile and safe for consumption.

Another is virtually ALL hatched in the wild die of parasites..bacteria..virus..contamination(which mostly come from there food and water).. predation..habitat loss and once in blue moon old age.. most of the hatch will not see there 1st birthday.. nature is neither a safe or healthy enviroment. Only the strongest and luckiest will survive!!

A diet of processed anything is dangerous over the long run...to humans.. BUT keep this in mind. If you swallow a live or thawed mouse whole,you'd probably get very sick..like you said there digestive track can handle a lot..bone, flesh animals parasite and bacteria load... so by comparison these processed foods are NOT dangerous by any means except if you ate it often or it was contaminated. And I am quite sure there are millions of low income families who do give there babies snacks like this..I grew up very very poor and my mom did..it wouldn't take much bad publicity and litigation to shut this line of product down.
So unless there is something in it that is poisonous which there is no evidence of then why not..I see it as a balance of probabilities...to me it is much more probable that lack of nutrition will cause harm then the scent. Even know it isn't ideal..what really is??
So why assume that human items are not safe for the occassional (basically a few times till they get started)use?Why assume that WC scent items are ..even know a large portion of wild deaths are caused by parasites ..disease etc.. that are passed on to them by there food and water?
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

Plus, they are only used to scent....a little flavored water on a dead pinkie. It's not like they are even eating the totally scrumptious Vienna sausage. I like mine with mustard and Tabasco sauce.
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Greg Jackson

Now, I don't know much about hognose snakes, and this is just my opinion, but I'd be pretty scared to scent food items with something so unnatural to their diet. After replying to the previous post by someone asking about which frogs to use for scenting with something I found on the hognose.com caresheet, I mean, it's just so specific... you can't use just any frog or you risk death or illness. I understand your point about how sterile the hotdog juice is, but it doesn't say that the specific frogs are dangerous because the frogs have something wrong with them, it just says you can't use those specific frogs. I just worry that if it's that specific, that there may be something in the hot dog juice that could harm the snake that no one knows about yet.

Well, whatever the case, it seems you're the first to try it out. If anything goes wrong, please update everyone else on the matter. Personally, I'd probably wait and see how your snakes fare before I'd try it myself :X

I'm sure what Justin means is that the wild caught frogs, toads and Anole lizards can be infected with insecticides from eating the crickets and roaches and things like that around the house. and That for sure is not healthy for the little guys!!

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LOL i should have read all the post before i posted the last one.

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what if the food there feeding rodent's contains something harmful to hogs??? I don't know that either...lot's of what if's.. fluoride in water maybe hurtful too..lot's of good science say's it is and ..most store bought filters don't filter it out. I use a 4 stage reverse osmosis filter that filter's virtually everything out even the fluoride..and even the natural minerals..that could be overdoing it...but haven't had any problem with animals or eggs or myself..reef tanks..so??
..if you too scared to try new ideals and methods due to the "what if's" in life!!! then how will there be progress??

Sometimes we learn as much or more from our failures than we do our successes. To me what not to do is is just as important as know what to do!!
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Justin Mitcham
ExtremeHogs.com

And I would be much more concerned about natural toxins some frogs and toads produce than a little "porky" smelling water from a Vienna sausage. I figure that if in the wild they can eat dead and decaying mice, birds, eggs etc., a little scenting from the sausage is nothing.
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Greg Jackson