Herp Eaters

[BWSmith]

In light of a recent thread, i am curious. If you had a snake that only ate herps, would you feed them to it?

Example: Eastern Hognose feeding on toads, Vine snake feeding on lizards, (for the hot keepers) Coral Snake feeding on baby cornsnakes or King Cobra feeding on Ball Pythons. Just a few examples of ophidiophages and preferred prey in captivity.

[drewlowe]

If i truely wanted a snake that ate other herps then yes i would. but i probly wouldn't get a snake that required eating other herps, cause i would want to keep its food for pets LOL.

[Samba]

I believe many of us would if we could stomach giving our snakes some very expensive meals! I personally couldn't afford it, in fact, I'd like to find a nice species of predominately egg eating snakes! Any suggestions? =)

[Ed_r]

African Egg Eating snake, But they are very picky. But also very cool. You can't just feed them chicken eggs. The usually only eat songbird eggs in the wild. Someone I know has one that will only eat fresh quail eggs out of a real bird nest. Very specialized care required.

[Oliverian]

I feed my garter baby tadpoles that I hatch, but only a few, as I like to keep the rest to grow into frogs. :) Just to give him a more complete diet

[SCReptiles]

By all means. =)

[marisa]

Most certainly! If I had a king cobra and it needed BP's for some reason I would definitly have no problem feeding them to it. Even with my pet BP sitting in the same house. I can easily distinguish (sp) pet and food, and have no problem doing so.

I believe people who refuse to feed certain animals the food they need because the food may be cute or what not, add too many human emotions to reptile keeping. I raise cornsnakes, but would have no problem feeding a coral snake or what not cornsnake babies. Twoi totally different things IMHO. :) Rasiing and feeding that is :)

Marisa who is terribly cold hearted. :D

[Vanan]

I agree with most in that if I owned an ophiophagous snake I would try to keep it's diet natural. On the other hand I doubt I would be keeping any such snake as it's next to impossible trying to find enough herp prey to feed one such snake up here, let alone a few.

Nice poll btw Brian. ;)

[Linds]

Ditto what Marisa said :D I wouldn't have problems feeding herps to herps. Its food chain business. Of course I would breed my own food (I do anyways with my rodents), too expensive to buy and never know what parasites and whanot you can encounter, and the last thing I would ever do is collect my own from the wild.

Originally posted by Samba
I'd like to find a nice species of predominately egg eating snakes! Any suggestions? =)

JD@REPTILES recently aquired a pair of Egg Eaters at the last show, you may want to contact him for details on them...

[Invictus]

I personally wouldn't own a snake with requirements like that at this stage of my hobby. Maybe in the future, finances permitting, I might get a snake that eats other herps, but for now, I second what drewlowe said - I'd end up keeping all the food as pets! :)

[Tim and Julie B]

I have a hard time thinking about doing any such thing, but I would certainly do so if I owned any reptile with those food needs. It really is part of the hobby, and there's no way around it.:D In the wild it's natural, and in captivity things should be as natural as possible. And I would certainly breed my own food supply.
Julie B

[Jeff Hathaway]

I'm with Marisa, though if a viable, nutritious alternative was possible (i.e. mice for hognoses) I would use it whenever I could.

Jeff Hathaway
Sciensational Sssnakes!!

[Sean_.E.]

First of all I dont think I would want to keep anything more venomous than a vine snake. I could manage feeding toads to Eastern hognoses and house geckos to vine snakes. The rest I would not keep. I dont think I could feed a ball python to another snake though.

Sean

[Lisa]

I wouldn't keep a herp that required other reps as food, how ever I do have a pair of snakes that do eat other herps as food but will eat mice just as well.

[BWSmith]

oops, after all this, I forgot to vote :)

[Pia]

I agree with Marissa it's the natural food chain. I also find it's very subjective. I've talked to people that think it's fine to feed mice and rats but are horrified at the thought of feeding a rabbit. Bottom line for me: if it's not a pet lizard or snake I would use it for food.

[RaVeNo888o]

i would probably avoid getting a snake that required to eat other herps. are we fogetting king snakes? they eat other snakes in the wild, but we are lucky enough that snakes are not their only source of diet. I would maybe feed a snake an anole once in a while as a 'treat' lol

[Hamster of Borg]

I've dealt with feeding "reject" baby corn snakes to coral snakes, I currently keep vine snakes and night snakes - both of which are lizard eaters, I also have eastern hognose which are amphibian eaters. The cycle of life doesn't really bother me much. :) I try to keep the diet as natural as possible, but don't shy away from feeding mice to my vine snake sometimes.

Ham

[Edwin]

Hmm.. do you feed f/t corns then, or do prekill them first?