Reptile & Amphibian Forums

The watersnake forum is pretty dead, so I figured I would post this here instead. I captured a broadbanded water snake last week road cruising. I bagged her for someone who was interested in them but they decided they didnt want it. Its fairly large, about 2 to 2.5 feet long. I havent had time to release her (think its a her due to size, could be wrong), so decided to feed her. I offered her a tilapia fillet that I sliced lengthwise into strips. She took it with no problems. Now, I know this is not an acceptable long term food source, but how often can you use something like this with good results? To be honest, since I set it up and got it to feed, I am actually thinking about keeping it LOL!! I have kept baby water snakes before many years ago as a kid growing up in New Orleans. I usually fed them minnows caught from the ditches and canals the snakes were captured in. However, I never kept an adult sized watersnake and really not sure what/how much to offer!! Would it take fish scented mice?? Any advice would be appreciated!!

KevinM

fish filets can be used but you need to add calcium since there are no bones, and also occasionally of course a vitamin supplement as well. My adult FL banded cherry water snake eats fish scented mice. What I do is I thaw two adult mice and a bluegill (I keep these stocked in my freezer) I rub the mice all over the bluegill to get them all slimy and then I give her those. She of course eats them vigorously. Sometimes she gets bothered by the texture when she's got it almost swallowed and will spit it back out, and then attempt to eat it again. Eventually she eats both mice and then I cut the bluegill in half lenthwise, and give her that as well. So she eats two adult mice and an adult bluegill every sitting! My advice would be to start her on fish and get her on a regular feeding regimen so she gets used to you feeding her, and then once she's in the routine of eating from you, start adding some mice to the diet. I would not do just mice, but half mice and fish works rather well... Keeps them full and happy because they LOVE fish!!! I do the same thing with all my juvenile banded, but on a smaller scale of course.

I agree! This sounds like good advice. I would think water snakes would be easy to switch to mice or rat hoppers. They are very excited by the smell of fish!
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

Well, I decided to release the beastie this weekend. Drove down to the road it was collected from and let it go back into the bayou/swamp.