Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I was wondering if anyone knows if you can feed your big nakes like burms and retics store bought organically grown chicken from the frozen food sections? Any thoughts or websites?

One of the shows I used to work on, we fed the big burms fresh jumbo turkey legs we picked up at the grocery store. They seemed to like them and we never had any problems with them. I hope this helps.

Circusfan

Keep in mind, raw poultry is a vector for salmonella.
This may not be something you want to deal with.
This statement is oversimplifying things, but gives you something to research.

I should also mention, don't know why I didn't before, my boss would usually inject the turkey with a mix of vitamins and nutrients so the snake got the needed dosage. I'm sure there is the chance of the snake contracting something from the poultry, but all I can say is that one of our big snakes had been eating turkey legs for over 10 years. I would recommend though feeding something of more sustanance that already has the nutrients in it. My burm gets one medium rabbit every two to three weeks. I hope this helps.

Circusfan

Bear in mind, if your snake does accept that food it is missing out on the nutrition that whole prey items offer. By freezing, some nutrients are already degraded. What makes snakes so successful as a group of animals is their ability to extract all the nutrients they need from their prey. By not feeding whole prey items on a regular basis, you are denying them the ability to extract everything that they need. On an occasional, as needed basis, I do not see any harm, but I definitely would not use it as a staple diet. As already mentioned, there is also a possibility of salmonella.

Currently, I feed only freshly killed rats and rabbits. I do not feed any of my reptiles any birds or bird products, but I also live less than 100km from a confirmed case of the bird flu.

Michael

>>I was wondering if anyone knows if you can feed your big nakes like burms and retics store bought organically grown chicken from the frozen food sections? Any thoughts or websites?

I don't understand why you would want to feed organically grown chicken. Not too sure about where you are but here chicken from the store cost a lot, a lot more then a rabbit.

If it's not any better for the snake, why spend the money?