Reptile & Amphibian Forums

These are some of the food items found in wild indigos. This was based on museum specimen gut contents, regurgitated or palpated items, field observations, and feces.
Shark head
Southern toad
bullfrogs
leopard frogs
siren
American alligator (juvenile)
peninsula cooter eggs
gopher tortoise babies and eggs
glass lizards
watersnakes (four species)
eastern ribbonsnakes
eastern garter snakes
scarlet snakes
ring-necked snakes
southern and eastern hognose snakes
mudsnakes
rainbow snakes
common kingsnakes
eastern coachwwhip snakes
eastern indigo snakes (juvenile)
racers
ratsnakes
cornsnakes
rough green snakes
copperheads
cottonmouths
pygmy rattlesnakes
eastern diamondbacks
timber rattlesnakes
coral snakes
domestic chicken
scrub jay
meadowlarks
towhees
opposum (juvenile)
marsh rabbit (nestling)
eastern cottontail
cotton mouse, hispid cotton rat
house mouse
black rat
southern flying squirrel

Notice a trend? Very broad diet, but strong preference for snakes.

This was taken from the paper by Dirk Stevenson (now with Project Orianne)which I referred to in the thread below.

I wonder if this has to do with preference or more whatever is edible and happens to frequent the gopher tort's burrows. Indigos favorite hangout where it'd be king of the hill, until a bulldozer comes along of course.

I am sure they eat nearly anything they can which crawls into the gopher tortoise burrows, hence the baby tortoises and tortoise eggs in their guts. However, these snakes are active foragers for much of the year. I believe they actively seek out snakes as preferred food. I feed mine snakes (or snake pieces) whenever I can (DORs, etc.) and their reaction to snake food is almost scary. They like quail and chicks second best. Mice are their least favorite, in my experience. They seem adapted to eating snakes; they cannot even open their mouths very wide. I think that their difficulties with egg-binding in captivity may be related to the typical pet snake mouse/rat diet.

FLYING SQUIRRELS,!!!!!!!.....DUDE I DIDN'T KNOE INDIGOS COULD FARGIN FLY!!!!!!......didn't even know they had wings??????.......lemme axe a question......why would a rodent diet contribute to egg binding/retention.......too much of sump tin....or too little of sumptin.......or no one knows really .....why!!!!!!......

Yeah, the flying squirrel was interesting, but what about the shark? It was a field observation of an indigo scraping the flesh off of a washed up shark. Gotta love it. Let's see a ball python do that!
I have no evidence that rodent diets causes egg-binding. But I was reading the Indigo Forum Archives (none of those guys post much anymore) here and noted how commonly egg-binding occurs with this species. Maybe it is dietary; their favored food seems to be snakes. I have been feeding mine f/t "snake segments" along with quail and chicks and the occasional mouse.
I also think that inactivity of captive indigos may lead to egg-binding. These snakes are built to travel and wild indigos have a huge home range. Pick up a ball python and what does it do? Pretty much nothing. Pick up an indigo and what does it do? Constantly glides through your hands. Not frenzied, spastic movements, but deliberate forward movement. These guys have evolved to move. Put them on the ground and they start moving, continually periscoping, to survey their surroundings.

My incredibly complex hypothesis has always been - Their eggs are BIG. Granted, these aren't exactly Corn Snakes crapping out softballs, but... IF there is any data, I'd like to see egg size vs. species size. I'd venture a guess that Dry's have one of the most skewed ratios in the snake world. I'm sure it doesn't help that they're pretty much coated with sandpaper - ouch.

Dale

Yeah, they are big. But not as big (I believe) as Louisiana pines, black pines, southern pines. And none of these have the reputation for egg-binding that indigos have. Also, I doubt if wild populations are so prone to binding. Natural selection would not allow it. I believe it is due to our husbandry, but that is just my opinion. It is a complicated species, but that is much of the appeal.

Maybe that textured surface of the egg causes drag etc in the old flapping tubes / utilitarian wall????......WAT A DRAG EH????

well, i have always believed that the egg binding issue is related to laying around flat on their stomachs w/ little exercise in their cages & especially being way overheated in the same which was the norm as little as 10 years ago....

That makes sense to me. I keep my young indigos pretty much at ambient temps (70 to 78 F) and they digest with no issues. Also growing fine. It is easy to keep temps lower, but what about the exercise part of the equation? Large cages may help some, but what else? Double-layered cages? Backyard excursions?

Ha.....design a walking harness for snake!!!!!.......go on that SHARK TANK show...... Next BIG thing......you'll be a BILLIONAYHAIR!!!!!!

i always kept my cribos at ambient room temp as well w/ a small lamp which was used only when it was really cold outside.

posted accidentally before i was done. and yeah, i kept them in enormous cages, the one shown is an 8 footer. i later put some heavy branches in there so that they could climb around & exercise. i should also mention that it's not advisable to heavily feed gravid females. the fat ones usually have problems laying, slender is better & then feed her all she wants afterwards. hope this helps....

Yes, that does help. We can never come close to providing the "traveling area" for a snake which has such a large home range, but we can expand opportunities within the cages and control food intake. When you kept cribos, what did you feed them?

pretty much rats, exclusively. i did also feed fish in the very beginning & they went nuts on it but the feces was TOO much!

good fat rats and mice....no exercise...no movement at all in some cases...small cages....and yes even the temp miht be off....

why would a rodent diet NOT screw up all captive snakes?...

....indigos...easterns....big badazz snakes...they eat alot...get really heavy...they defecate like 200 times a day if you feed them....pounds at a time....(yes you get it...I'm exagerating)....

snake diet would give them the nutrients they need better than rodents....and they would have to eat alot less times per year than all mice or rats....so if fed snakes and goven ALOT of room they would glow and be at a real healthy weight....

I love easterns...friend had one...got huge really fast....

.....(other friend had king cobras....fed them rats...but cut feed times in half....they grew good and looked good....like a good meal every 2 weeks...not 6 small rats a week....like they wanted)....
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........JY