Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Okay, I am new to being a snake owner, but one of the unifying themes in all the research I have done has been the diet of captive snakes. In just about every source I have seen I read that you feed mice, and possibly rats... and that is all. Call me crazy, but the same mouse does not inhabit the southeastern quarter of the country, feeding on the same food, and containing the same nutrients. I have bred and raised fish for years and found that the secret to the best growth and most brilliant coloration does not lie in one scientifically balanced diet, but in a diet with exceptional amounts of variety. Honestly how well would any of you do eating the same chicken sandwich, green salad and glass of milk for every meal for the rest of your life. Sure you'll survive, but you'll never be in the best of health and will never feel the best. Sure it poses a potential monetary obstacle to feed your corn snake a gerbil, a hamster, a... god forbid... anole (which is a good portion of their natural diet), or a frog. I haven't experimented with it yet, but I am willing to bet that replicating nature at his truest is a much more effective way to give a snake a wholesome, tasty life than the same mouse he gets every week. If I have said anything erroneous in this posting please tell me what it is and I will surely change my ideas on the topic. If nothing you read here raises a red flag then consider trying to duplicate your pet's natural world as opposed to shaping it to your liking.

By all means please experiment with different prey and let us know the outcome. But at the same time please be careful and don't endanger your corn.

Most if not all corns sold these days are captive bred. They're raised on healthy nutritous baby mice, then as the get larger fed equally nutritous feeder mice and or rats. They're accustomed to this, and thousands of cornsnake owners and breeders will probably agree that this is the best for them to lead healthy lives.

Your point of view is that if we as humans were offered the same thing over and over, we'd survive, but wouldn't be healthy or "feel the best." Your wrong in this analogy. Snakes aren't like us. All they care about is survival. They eat, digest, poop, then move on. Yes we do show preference to a variety of foods, but we're picky. Mice have everything a snake could possibly want for nutrients, all in a nice bite sized package. They eat once a week (mileage may vary depending on owner and prey), and they survive.

Snakes want to survive, thats their instincts. They don't care what kind of prey it is, just so that they can live. A regular old feeder mouse provides everything they could need. Have you ever seen an unhappy snake after just having dined on a mouse? Yes thats facicous, but it brings me to my next point, how do you know whats best for your snake?

Yes that question can go two ways. You can stick to the arguement who are we to decide mice and rats are the norm. At the same time though, again can thousands of cornsnakes being bred and raised to live long happy healthy lives off be wrong?

If you can show me evidence to the contrary, then I'll start shopping for anoles and hamsters asap.

As for duplicating our pets natural world.. we keep them trapped in enclosures for their entire lives, living on anything but natural substrate, with an endless supply of water and a never ending shortage of food. Not to mention they never have to worry about becoming something elses prey. Its almost hypocritical if you believe we can duplicate their natural habitat.

Your right, we do shape it to our liking. But we also provide for them everything they could possibly need in order to survive, and "feel the best." Thats our responsibilites as owners / caretakers.

I'm all for variety if you can make it work, but I also care about my corns health and well being over everything else. If my Diego is healthy and especially happy with mice now, who am I to try and change it because I feel it would be to my liking?

This is in no ways an attack on your point of view, just a counter view. I would honestly like to hear more information if you or anyone knows of any good prey they've successfully fed to their corns and the results.

-julia

I think that if you want to feed your snake a variety of food items go ahead, but you may end up with a snake that only wants to eat one type of food item. It's happened before to people who have done what you are suggesting.

Especially the anole. I would bet a bunch of money that if you fed an anole and then later wanted to try and feed a mouse, the snake would say "What the $%#&? Where's my anole?" and you would be stuck feeding anoles for a long time. When breeders have to resort to feeding anoles in order to keep a hatchling alive, they have a hell of a time switching them over to mice.

Also, you may want to do a little research on the nutritional composition of the food items you are considering before changing anything in your snake's diet.

A good resource for this can be found on RodentPro's website:
http://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.asp

They don't list about every food item you mentioned, but they do list a lot.

You also need to take into consideration the risk of parasites. From what I've heard (I have no first hand experience) anoles and other herps can harbor a ton of parasites that can be passed on to your snake. The risk of the snake getting a parasite from a rodent is there but much less than feeding herps.

Good luck with whatever you decide.
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alstiver@hotmail.com

Current snakes:
1.0 '01 Hypo snow cornsnake (Tesla Coil)
0.1 '02 Ghost (pastel) cornsnake (Banshee)
1.1 '02 Bloodred cornsnakes (Desi and Luci Too)
To be added in February:
0.1 '98 Het Hypo, Het Caramel cornsnake
1.0 '00 Hypo Het Caramel cornsnake

what if i wanted to feed an anole on occasion. Not all the time, Not once a month, just every once in a while. Do you think that would make a snake switch over to anoles. This is just a question iv been think about it for a while.
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0.0.1 03'Amel (1st)
0.0.1 03'Normal (2nd)
to be add in january (pos.)

what ever kind a corn catches my eye at the show

np.

I plan on trying a varied diet for my snakes as well. I don't see where an occasional change (say 1 meal every 2 month) in diet once in a while will be detrimental to the snake. No lizards because I'm worried about parasites. Once my snake gets larger, plan on using ass't f/t rodents, f/t quail chicks or regular chicks and maybe fresh quail or chicken eggs if I can find them somewhere. I've been feeding 2-3 small mice 10-12gr for a while and just tried 2 rat pups today. She ate them both easily and quickly. I've heard poultry can cause messier stools and eggs have a terrible smelling stool. Will post any intresting results. Hope you like the pics, she's about 3' now I think. Still a newbie so take this all with a grain of salt.

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sue