Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I have a 9 year old female alligator snapper...I am thinking of sourcing craw dads as a treat. Anyone ever fed captives these?

I have fed them to my Common snapper on many occasions. He especially enjoys freshly molted crawdads. I Am sure your turtle will as well.

How big is your common? I have one also, about 5 years old. He is super aggressive, has a very deformed shell from previous owner keeping him indoors in a very small enclosure. His carapace is approx. 6" long & flared upwards around the err 1/2 of shell.

He is much happier now in outdoor pond.

I am having trouble finding live crayfish, here in LA area. Lots of Vietnamese crayfish restaurants but none will sell them live. I guess I may have to hit the local rivers & golf course streams.

My common is a 2 yr old male. SCL about 7 inches. There is one pet shop near me that occasionally has live crawdads but usually the ones I feed to him come from a local stream. When I first got him I put him into a fish tank with some fish and crawdads. Next day all the small Crawdads were gone. Fun to watch snappers eat that's for sure.

There's no way a 2 year old common snapper is 7"... I don't care what you're feeding it. It's either older than that, or you haven't actually measured lol ...they simply don't grow at that rate.

You know what they say about opinions right?

A couple months ago, I fed my ASTs some steamed crawdads. They loved them, but what a mess it makes! They're crapping out shell for a week! Plus it smells pretty rank...old seafood!

Pretty much the same thing with live prawns...they devour them, but the resultant mess may not warrant a regular feeding of crustaceans!

yes snappers common and alligator are messy. When I first got into keeping them I liked to offer whole foods alive if possible for the show of it all. But after a bit I started offering smaller meals just like I do with my monitors and snakes and noticed much better growth and a lot less fouling in the water. The guy who claims my snappers cant actually grow at the rate they have will dispute this I am sure as he/she most likely she is bored. But My best advise is to feed a varied diet comprised of mostly meat based in the first years of life. Its worked for me and good luck.

Here is one of my males at 727 days old and over 7 inches SCL. Hatched him myself so Im sure of every single millimeter of growth and have full records of every single meal.

I usually order mudbugs from www.lacrawfish.com
I get in enough to cook up and enough to toss into a stock tank and keep around for feeding my Macros. I've been looking into the possibility of getting some of the self cloning crawfish but I am not sold on those yet.
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"I'm your Huckleberry"

Thanks....I'll check it out! I've never eaten them myself!

They are addictive. A batch of bugs, some sausage, a few ears of corn cut in half, and a bag of potatoes tossed into a big pot to boil. Add some beer and good music and you have a party.
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"I'm your Huckleberry"