Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Here's a shot of the goose that didn't lay the golden eggs.
Bob's peregrine falcon brought down this twelve pound Canada goose yesterday.
And this young female took it down today[][]
ENJOY!

Steve Gooch's DIGITALSCALES

Just wondering if you are worried about feeding that beautiful retic prey that has an unknown history. For example, what if it just flew in after having fed from a chemically contaminated pond. Could have been that the goose was doomed to die in the next day or so, but instead wound up snake food.

I know that's an exaggeration, but I'm just trying to illustrate a point. Does this give you any pause for concern?

- Mark

>>Here's a shot of the goose that didn't lay the golden eggs.
>>Bob's peregrine falcon brought down this twelve pound Canada goose yesterday.
>>And this young female took it down today[][]
>>ENJOY!
>>Steve Gooch's DIGITALSCALES
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~ANTEGY~
www.antegy.com
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I have at different times fed my snakes food from "uncontrolled sources" with no problems whatsoever. Once a small owl flew in front of my truck and got caught in the grill. When I stopped to check out the damage, he/she was right there above the fender. At the time, I had a retic that only ate birds (I mentioned this in a post below), so I viewed this as a free meal. Went home and tossed it in the cage and she gobbled it up. No problems at all.

I have at different times fed pythons dead squirrels, rabbits and rats from the wild. I have never had a problem, and I've never used an animal that was shot. I used a veterinarian in the early '90's who was a big boa breeder, and he said that snakes do not contract diseases from mammals. It was his suggestion that I feed my big ones dead animals from the wild (including fresh roadkill). I have done this only a few times, and I haven't fed a python anything from "uncontrolled sources" in many years. But I have done it, and I've never had a snake suffer any side effects from doing so. I realize that the potential is there, such as if an animal had been poisoned, but it hasn't been an issue so far.

I know this is a controversial practice, and I mentioned it over on the Burmese forum a few months ago and got flamed pretty hard by a couple of posters. But several others said they had done the same things in times past. It's probably not as uncommon as many may think.

RP

>>and he said that snakes do not contract diseases from mammals.

This is probably technically true for the most part...but my understanding is that many mammals eat small reptiles which can carry parasites and their eggs which can survive in the mammals gut long enough to pass to your snake. The mammals aren't infected with a disease that is transmissable to the snake, but are physically "carrying" it around inside them temporarily.
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Larry D. Fishel
Side effects may include paralysis
and death but are generally mild.