Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi all, I have a couple of questions that I would like to get opinions on. Question #1. I have read here in the forum that some keepers use unprinted excess newspaper end rolls for bedding. Are the inks that are used to print newspapers toxic? And has this been proven or just a safety precaution. Is it colored ink or black ink that is bad? I had thought that inks were soy based now? I really need to know because my indigo's really seem to enjoy reading the funny paper each week, but I wouldn't want to compromise their health by keeping them on an unhealthy substrate. I actually keep them on white paper towels at this point as they are still babies. Question #2. I have a small mouse and rat colony which is just starting to produce more rodents than I can use each week so I need to put my excess in the freezer for future use, what is the preferred method to prepare my rodents for cold storage? Freeze them alive? Stun and freeze? Buy some co2 and gas them? How do the large scale rodent producers do it? Any Opinions will be appreciated Thanks.

John Hicks

Sorry I forgot to ask this in the previous post.
I have talked to several different breeders and all of them to a man agree that captive snakes should only be fed frozen thawed or pre-killed rodents. I have a small mouse and rat colony and aways have several different sizes of animals available alive. When I feed if the prey item in any way can injure the snake, I stun it before giving it to a snake. With pinkies and fuzzies, crawlers, should I kill them also? As they are in no way a danger to the snakes? Thanks for any opinions.

John Hicks

The ink; not toxic unless you're using rather old newspapers... safe for kids, safe for snakes. In Usa/Canada anyways.

Co2 is the way to go with the rodents unless it's just a few here and there. If you have the time, you can "stun" them instead, but make sure the wack to the head kills them before the freezer does. The exception to CO2 is the pinkies... they still have a good capacity for anaerobic respiration, thus C02 doesn't do much good, takes a loong time. Some people cool them, then freeze them; I'm not sure what I'd do if I was faced with any large number of pinkies.

As for feeding, anything larger than a pinkie, I'd prekill if not for safety, then to just keep the snake used to prekilled prey for when it does need larger vermin.

Ian

There are some vitamins lost by freezing so I mix it up frozen thawed and freshly killed.
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"Life without risk is to merely exist."