Reptile & Amphibian Forums

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Doug L

Hey Doug,

When you feed a snake like this does it mess up the rodent feedings after?

Mike

LOL. It's been a while since you posted one of your feeding pics and I knew it would not be long!! I love those photos. I know you only do that kind of feeding as a last resort also and most times it seems to work. I do the same thing.

My mice finally gave me some live pinks and she took one right away,she later took another so I was happy about that. Ill have to post some pics.
Thanks again for the very cool snake Joe
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Doug L

That is awesome news Doug!!! I knew she would come around for ya! She is an awesome looking Knoblochi too so I cannot wait to see her when she gets bigger. Very bright and perfect pattern.

Thats what some say but it is not true at least not with every snake. The snake in this photo had only eaten a subadult
skink and one large pink the whole spring/summer so i tryed the brown snake and it jumped on it right away.It ate two more small snakes after this over a 10 day period then last night it took a large ft pink scented with snake.When a snake starts to go too long w/o a meal you have to try different kinds of meals or the snake will die.Often a snake can be switched to pinks by using lizard/snake meals and then scenting a pink with the same lizard/snake scent.

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Doug L

I agree Doug. Listen, this is what these snakes eat most of the time as babies in the wild and most are hard wired for these types of meals. Some babies just will not accept anything else for the first couple of meals and giving them what they want and then using the same type of meal for scenting is a great way to get the stubborn hatchings switched to pinks. I don't enjoy feeding a lizard or snake to another snake but I will do so before my hatchling dies.

Great post and pictures, Doug -- thanks! The concept of appealing to a finnicky snake's most primal dietary preferences makes perfect sense. I've gotten three CH black racers started this year on geckos and anoles alone, and I don't anticipate any trouble switching them to rodents by next season. I have to ask though, with regard to feeding WC food items, do you ever run into issues with parasites long down the road? I'm in grad school for parasitology and if there's one thing I've come to appreciate it's how virtually all wild animals are just LOADED with bugs -- commensals, classical parasites, and otherwise. For some reason I can justify feeding WC prey to CH "founder stock" -- it's what they would have been eating anyway, and it seems likely that they'll be pretty tolerant of an infection -- but I just peril to think of introducing wild bugs into, say, a pretty designer Honduran... Am I just being an anthropomorphic wiener here, overly-concerned for "my" babies? Or is there some legitimacy to my concern? What's your experience with this? Anyone -- any thoughts?

Thanks and cheers!

Brad
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http://www.waffahousereptiles.com

Brad I'll email you
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Doug L

Brad, I don't feed snakes or lizards to any snakes but my indigo, and only occasionally, but I scent all the time. By freezing and nuking the "juice" I haven't had any problems yet, but I do get wild caughts that are loaded, it takes time to get rid of these bugs and they are always separated from my c.b. stuff. With enough heat and fresh water exchanges, they get rid of the bugs pretty fast. That said, I don't work with any northern or eastern type milks, just the anulatta, celaenops, and amaura, and of the three, the amaura have the most bugs. I think the southern and western types have less parasites, being desert or thornscrub animals, not wetland types. Just a hunch, but I think the wetter the climate, the more parasites that are found in the prey items. I've never seen any of the southern and western animals that were obviously loaded with endos or ectos, but have seen lots of different wetter types that were loaded.
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Todd Hughes

That is interesting Todd. I have never found a snake here in Maryland that had obvious signs of parasites. (mites,ticks, ect.) I am sure they have some internal parasite loads but to date I have not had one get sick or show symptoms of this. As far as feeding w/c food to my snakes I only do that as a last resort and I have had time when they would only take LIVE w/c prey as well. Still, these snake seemed fine and two years ago I took one of these snakes to the vet to get some atibiotics for a URI and they did a fecal test. No visible parasites. I also think husbandry plays a big role in how these animals deal with any parasites that they might ingest.(as you also stated) I have talked to at least one herper who used to live in CA and he stated that some of the w/c he would come across were loaded with ticks and mites and he has not come across any in MD that had this issue. Many of the mountain kings species are started on scented items and if these were not DEEP frozen for a long time or cooked then parasites are surely passed to these hatchlings. Given the proper temps I think they deal with it.

Todd while we are on the topic of internal parasites,aren't those desert thornscrub senticolis prone to internal parasites?
I was wondering if you know the treatment for senticolis parasites?
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Doug L

I really have no knowledge of parasites in senticolis, I would consider them Madrean woodland species, not thornscrub species. I made my first foray into the Santa Ritas this past August and had a great time, although no greens or pyros were found. I'll be going back though.
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Todd Hughes

I was there in August also. I had the same bad luck as you
I did see other cool stuff though

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Doug L

haha, me too, I found a can of Dapper Dan hair cream sitting on a boulder under an oak I was resting under, old as dirt, barely could make it out, but at least now "I'm bonafide"!

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Todd Hughes

look at those photos.Put your glasses on tell me what you see.
I picked it up.
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Doug L

Can you give us a small hint as to what you mean regarding the pics?

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

Wood mite.

Bingo Joe got it
Joe did you hear this from Phil ?

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Doug L

Of course. Did you really think my eyes were that good!!LOL.

Wow!,..I even looked at that real well initially, but it wasn't dark like reptile mites are, and just thought it was some dusty wood debri from the cage..LOL!

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

Nice shots Doug.

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Joe

Joe, that looks like that little screamer you posted just recently. Very light backround. Awesome.