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RE: Juvenile Scarlet King Snake

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Posted by: asnakelovinbabe at Thu Oct 22 18:23:25 2009  [ Report Abuse ] [ Email Message ] [ Show All Posts by asnakelovinbabe ]  
   

Scarlet kingsnakes take lizards as their prey in the wild and are basically, exclusively lizard eaters, skinks as Tim mentioned. I would imagine they may also take the occasional toad? They don't want to eat anything else because they are born and imprinted with seeing lizards as their food. They simply don't recognize other things as a food item. They are very shy, secretive snakes and as WC, generally do not make a very good captive. They are even hard to convert to pinky mice (heck even the captive bred babies require work) and if it can be done at all, it is very hard to do and the snake will often go through a long period where it will go off feed until you use the lizard scent, or even a lizard, again. Insects would not be a suitable replacement for an animal that normally would feed on lizards. It would be like trying to force a tortoise to eat only tomatoes. Many people argue that not even rodents would be a suitable replacement for an animal that normally eats lizards. Insects are for insectivores, and there are only a handful of snakes that eat insects (green snakes). Many even say that garter snakes eat insects which is entirely FALSE. mice, lizards, and birds are very different in their makeup from any insect and also each other, and not only will 99% of snakes NOT eat insects, if you somehow did manage to get it to eat one it will pass through undigested, as their system is not built for digesting them. If you are unable to stand the thought of feeding one creature to another, you may want to look away from snakes because all snakes eat other creatures and it's just the way it has to be. Whether still alive or frozen thawed, the mouse dies to be food either way. A green snake, which IS an insectivore and eats only insects, (NOT being contrite, but doesn't that bother you, because insects are living things too?) or possibly an omnivorous reptile, such as a bearded dragon, turtle, or a tortoise, which is a vegetarian. I hope this has helped in some way. I am not trying to be a jerk here, but some snakes, specialty eaters like the scarlet kingsnake in particular, need to eat very specific things and it is not acceptable or in favor of the animal to try and substitute that diet for something less. Our convenience should never come before the animals needs and I am sure you can understand where I am coming from!


   

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<< Previous Message:  Juvenile Scarlet King Snake - mbradley, Thu Oct 22 09:38:55 2009