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HEY SO DO YOU FEED QUAIL OR FOWL AT ALL TO YOUR KINGS. I DONT KNOW IF I AM GOING TO FEED THESE FULL TIME. WOULD IT BE A GOOD IDEA TO MIX THEM UP OR ROTATE THE FOOD ITEMS WEEK TO WEEK, I AM FEEDING USUALLY JUST RAT PUPS TO MY THAYERI AND MEXMEX BUT THEY SEEM TO GO NUTS FOR THE QUAIL

ANYONE WHO FEEDS QUAIL PLEASE RESPOND

I doubt you will find anyone on this board that raises quail and feeds them to their snakes. I have a friend in SC that raises quail and he started feeding them to his large collection of snakes the last two years. He says his neonates grow much faster and that the breeding health and overall health has improved. I have seen pics of animals that I sold him and they are much bigger than snakes powerfed on rodents in the the first two years of life.

I don't know anything about the nutrient breakdown of quail v/s rodents or if snakes that are stubborn feeders tend to eat quail more then mice. But I have been thinking about raising quail for my own collection when I move to a different house.

I emailed my friend Scott, so hopefully he will come here and sheds some light on this subject for us.

Rainer is correct, no question about it. You have never seen a snake feed until you offer quail. so many benefits, where do we begin. I have never seen a quail regurge! Unlike mice and rats that swell while being digested, and can cause a regurge, quail are easily digested, no tough hide. quail feathers contain lots of pigment which definately is being absorbed by the snakes and producing bright red, yellows and oranges that are not produced on mice or rats. The colors are produced, just like the absorbtion of carotenes from carrots can produce orange colors in animals that consume them. I thought melanin was at work, but melanin can only be absorbed by the animal as black, no bright colors. The bottom line is this, you are what you eat. It takes a much more complex diet to raise a quail than to raise a mouse, therefore a much more nutricious feeder animal. Have you looked at the label on your feeder animals food bag. compare it to a qamebird feeder. Hey even feeding mice Chicken layer pellets, they will have larger litters than the norm., because this diet is catered to a breeding female chicken, you can imagine the effect it has on mice and rats as well. Nutrients, lots of them, and getting them into your snake in a 100% safe manner, NO supplements! Scott

I personally do not know anyone who has ever fed their snakes anything but rodents. Now is there any evidence that not only the nutrients but the better looking color carries over to offspring produced by snakes on this diet? In other words do babies grow up to resemble their quail fed parents if they were raised on rodents? If anything I seem to recall many negative comments made as far as giving quail or chicks to snakes as a "treat" because they may not want to go back to rodents. I have no idea how much it would cost to use quail as opposed to rodents....but I must admit I am curious to see what trying a snake or two on this diet would bring as far as results. Thanks for the info Tom Stevens

Tom I have looked into chicks and they are cheeper for the same sized mouse though I don't know if the weight is different. Also while in Florida I did snake rescues for the police. Whenever they got a call I would go and run it for them so the snakes wouldn't be killed. If you try this you can't charge because people would rather try to kill the snake than have to pay you to remove it. Anyway I went on a few calls to the local chicken farm and rescued snakes there and in four calls I saw two seven foot yellow rats a five and half foot yellow and a five and a half foot red rat. That is really big for the area I was in and this day and age. I also saw really large DORs in that area. Just a thought.
Later Jason

a link for raising the birds would be appreciated,also what species of quail is the best captive etc. etc. .Not just the snakes but my Tegus are drueling just thinking about it.Chris

I checked RodentPro and they don't have pictures. They do list the weights of their quail, but in ounces whereas rodents are in grams and I haven't checked the conversion yet to compare them. Anyway the pricing doesn't seem bad, but I'd be afraid I'd get the wrong size without seeing pics at different growth stages.

My experience with Quail is they will bring a response from a picky eater...we would occasional find hatchling(?) quail in Monterey,CA and for the Gopher Snakes that would not eat, they would go right after them.
On another note, I'm not sure if the quail were the same, but we would get baby chicks from feed stores while living in South Carolina. We were very young and 40-50 cents a chick was much more economical than mice! The Yellow Rats, Corns, and Kings would all eat these readily but when it was time for the snakes to relieve themselves, that smell was far worse than mice! It would hit you when you walk in the door!!!