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Those of us who have small ground snakes as pets know how challenging it can be to feed a fussy eater in the winter. Most of us north of the “snow belt” have no slugs available for months at a time.

We used an old non functional chest freezer (cut off the power cord) filled up about 8 inches deep with mulch, moss and loose soil. I misted the inside and keep it very humid in there.

The door seals tight so no slugs can escape, and it contains the smell. (yes large amounts of slugs in a bunch smell bad)

While the weather was still nice I captured hundreds of slugs, and dumped them into the freezer. All sorts, the slimy white ones, the leathery brown ones with the stripe, gooey black ones and the orange ones that show up after it rains.

Once a week I dump a bag of tossed salad into this and close it shut. Slugs are greedy eaters and will consume a lot of lettuce, but they will reproduce and provide you with a steady inexpensive reliable food source.

I also have several dozen earthworms living in there, they do a good job of cleaning up after the slugs. Sometimes the browns will happily gobble up worms, but most of my red bellys will only feed on slugs.

We have had ample slugs for feeding all winter long. And with 20+ little mouths to feed, we have needed them!

Now my mouse farm is another story...........

Peace.
Wayne A. Harvey

Image

thanks for sharing that information. I remember a while back trying to get info on where to get or how to keep slugs over the winter. The place I interned at had a couple brownsnakes and red-bellied snakes that were recently wild caught. The browns took to nightcrawlers without ever being given a slug but the red-bellied snakes took some work. There was a small pile of stuff out back that had a reliable slug supply but with winter approaching we were worried it would be cut off. After lots of attempts we finally got them to eat slug-scented nightcrawler pieces and eventually unscented as well. I'm sure there are snakes that just won't take to scented nightcrawlers no matter how hard you try though

No problem, If my experiences can help another I am glad to share.

Last winter I ultimately wound up watching my male Dekay die of starvation, I did not understand why, the female would eat crawlers and small earthworms from wal mart just fine, but the male refused to eat unless it was a slug. Thankfully though he did manage to impregnate Xena.
Xena my female Dekay Brown has the most beautiful copper color to her, and it carried over to two of her children, I plan to breed her again, and have kept the two copper babies as well.

We raised all the babies to the juvenile stage, and released all but the two copper colored ones. Letting go was hard, spending 2 months feeding them booger sized slugs off the tip of a toothpick, and then setting them free, it was tough.

It is so cool that someone else besides me appreciates the little snakes too!

Some of our snakes - Click here

>>Those of us who have small ground snakes as pets know how challenging it can be to feed a fussy eater in the winter. Most of us north of the “snow belt” have no slugs available for months at a time.
>>
>> We used an old non functional chest freezer (cut off the power cord) filled up about 8 inches deep with mulch, moss and loose soil. I misted the inside and keep it very humid in there.
>>
>> The door seals tight so no slugs can escape, and it contains the smell. (yes large amounts of slugs in a bunch smell bad)
>>
>> While the weather was still nice I captured hundreds of slugs, and dumped them into the freezer. All sorts, the slimy white ones, the leathery brown ones with the stripe, gooey black ones and the orange ones that show up after it rains.
>>
>> Once a week I dump a bag of tossed salad into this and close it shut. Slugs are greedy eaters and will consume a lot of lettuce, but they will reproduce and provide you with a steady inexpensive reliable food source.
>>
>> I also have several dozen earthworms living in there, they do a good job of cleaning up after the slugs. Sometimes the browns will happily gobble up worms, but most of my red bellys will only feed on slugs.
>>
>> We have had ample slugs for feeding all winter long. And with 20 little mouths to feed, we have needed them!
>>
>> Now my mouse farm is another story...........
>>
>> Peace.
>> Wayne A. Harvey
>>
>>you could allways hibernate them.
>>Image
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until next time make mine slither.herb
www.housesnakes@yahoo.com