Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My water snakes are kept well fed on a usual diet of trout, goldfish and occasionally home made sausage. However lately due to difficulty accessing trout and my wife's aversion to my sausage mix in her kitchen, I've fed predominantly goldfish the last several months. As we all know, this could preclude a dietary/vitamin deficiency so an alternative was sought. Fortuneately my "new" neighborhood pet store sells frozen pinkies and mice (as well as golfish).
Last night I prepared (thawed) 14 pinks and 2 adult mice, dressed (scented) them all with one, 1" goldfish and began offering them to seven different species of nerodia, ranging in age from yearling to adult.
Without exception, the food was taken immediately and swallowed eagerly! And more was expected, only they had to be "topped off" with goldfish. This was due to a shortage of thawed pinks and adult mice. In fact, two other species of nerodia had to go without a mouse meal (snakes can cry!) because I had'nt purchased enough big mouses. Actually, one of these snakes has taken a scented rat in the past (the big red belly on banner above) but, the other has not yet been offered a rodent. I'll fix that shortly.
So, if you're considering offering your water snake a vitamin rich, calcium fortified, stick-to-his-ribs, thawed/scented mouse meal ... odds are, it will be accepted (appropriately sized).
I share this little tid-bit with you because ... I have'nt been here for a while ... and I miss you!!
Michael

Congrats on your successful feeding technique Michael. Feeding rodents is a great way to balance a captive diet. In fact, I have several snakes that I feed nothing but rodents. However, I've found my snakes are reluctant to eat anything with fur. I've remedied this by feeding rat pinks to my larger snakes but my large adult female erythrogaster can eat 7 or 8 at once, making it quite an expensive meal. I've tried skinning rats to remove the fur but this usually causes the viscera to fall out, causing a loss of nutritive value (not to mention a big disgusting mess). Did you have any problem getting your snakes to accept the adult mice Michael?
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Pierson Hill

Herpetology and Herpetoculture

In fact, with both adults (my now 2 year old pictiventris female and your sipedon female) as well as Spaz with the rat, I had to really scent up the rodents! In this case, first I thawed the mice in some of the water I had the fish in, then placing the mice in a stainless dish, I cut open a dead goldfish and scented all of the mices. It's not nearly as messy as it sounds!

The mice and pinks where offered on forcepts and in every case where hit HARD, more so than normally with fish only. Only the adults noted above and one baby green struck twice, as though the first was an attack and the second was a "no release, swallow before it gets away" grab. In each case the second hit followed immediately, no hesitation, no fear!

Last year when I offered Spaz the un-scented, fresh killed (wild caught in a rat-trap) rat, she was out-raged! Hissing, coiling and biting, she drove the rat (me) out of her cage! Within minutes I had run upstairs, nuked a trout from the freezer, drenched the rat with the juices and shoved the meal back into Spaz's cage. A couple of tongue flicks and she took it. She only slowed down when she came to the tail ... at which point she seemed to react like I was feeling ... a bit ill. That tail appeared to be like a hair caught in her throat, she (sort of) gagged a bit but finished swallowing.

One thing I've noticed is that if I feed them one month goldfish (live), next month sausage (thawed) and another month trout (thawed), they're quite suspicious about the change. This was particularly noticeable between goldfish and trout. I'm guessing that this has to do with the strong odour and relative size difference of the food items (big smell, big risk?) But once the're accustomed to trout they can be almost indifferent to goldfish. In any case, they get over it quick!

Sorry Pierson, if you click on the x you can go back to sleep. I got carried away again.
Michael