Ribbon Snakes

[Auskan]

I have one ribbon snake (just got it this weekend) and I'm curious about something. I did some research and learned that in addition to fish/crickets, that they can also eat pinky mice, and in fact its a good idea to feed these as they are more nutritionally complete than fish/insects. However when I bought it, they said you can only feed pinkies if they're live. I'm wondering why that is. Has anyone had any experience with Ribbon snakes, and if so, can you advise as to whether or not they can eventually be trained to take f/t?
TIA

[JD@reptiles]

hey. i have had several ribbon snakes over the years. i would not bother with crickets at all. they can be quite sharp and scratch the snakes insides. go with mice preferbly if you can. than you will have less of a chance of parasites. be careful not to feed it too much. they can get some health problems by eating too many rodents.

[snakehunter]

ribbons and garters develope a Thiamine difficiency if fed strictly mice, offer more fish than mice to balance out the diet

[Auskan]

Thanks. Anyone know if they can be trained to eat f/t?

[SerpentLust]

They CAN be trained, but Ribbons I've found ar a bit stubborn. Every snake can be coxed into F/T, you just have to figure out a way to do it. Try scenting it like a fish and wiggling it with tongs in the tank, if your snake isn't timid, it might grab at it.

I had one Ribbon, didn't care much for it, I gave it to my friend Steph who has tamed him down a fair amount, but it will still only eat fish.

Jenn

[sapphire_moon]

Wouldn't it be easy to keep fish? just put a bowl of water with feeder fish in it??? Just a question.

[SerpentLust]

yeah, it's easyy with fish, but you do need a little tank, it's easier to buy feeders at least by the dozen and you can't put them all in the bowl at once. So with feeder fish comes fish care. Just like crickets with most lizards.

[Auskan]

Mostly I wanted to get it onto pinkies to supplement the fish because I thought I read that fish alone weren't a full diet. But someone above here said the opposite, so I guess if fish is all it needs, I'm happy with that. At the pet store they are only 12c a piece so I'm not going to worry about setting up a tank and doing the feeder fish thing - I've got enough on my plate with feeder rats and mice!

[Vanan]

ribbons and garters develope a Thiamine difficiency if fed strictly mice

?! Last time I heard, pinkies were a better alternative to thiamine deficient fish.

Most commonly fed fish (and frozen fish) are low in thiamine and high in thiaminase. This results in a deficiency in thiamine in a snake. Ways to over come this are, to feed pinkies which aren't too high in thiaminase, thaw out frozen fish and add a Vit B1 supplement to the fish before feeding or feed live fish (there's a list somewhere showing the amount of thiamine/thiaminase in common feeder fish). As always, live fish (especially goldfiish) ae infested with parasites. What I would recommend is to feed f/t goldfish (with Vit B1 supplement added) and the occasional pinky.

P.S. It doesn't take too long to search this topic up instead of misinforming people snakehunter.

[Vanan]

Oh btw, Ribbon snakes aren't that difficult to switch over to rodents. We had our group of 2.2 and all of them switched over the moment I scented the pink with goldfish. They never took unscented though.

[Auskan]

Thanks Vanan. At this point I haven't offered any food as he's still in the acclimatization phase. Access to pinkies is no problem (although actually he's big enough - should be able to eat fuzzies at least) and getting fish shouldn't be difficult either. I didn't think of parasites and fish - will have to give that some thought too.

[SerpentLust]

Vanan is correct, I wasn't sure but I know I was told to get my Ribbon over to pinkies asap.

[Jeff Hathaway]

Vanan is correct, snakehunter is not. Mice do not cause thiamin deficiency. Fish often do. It isn't necessarily that they are low on thiamin; the thiaminase (an enzyme) they contain destroys the thiamin that is present when it is all mixed together in the gut. I've had some success getting around this with heavy supplementation of thiamin (vitamin B1)- if you use up all the thiaminase, you'll still have some thiamin left. This can be effective with snakes that won't switch to mice. I imagine that too much B1 might be a problem, but I haven't seen any evidence so far. Freezing fish is much worse; I would avoid it completely, and use live or freshly killed fish only. In my experience, parasites are far less of a problem than thiamin deficiency. Of course, it wouldn't hurt to use flagyl and or panacur once or twice a year to help with various parasites. Goldfish are pretty high in fat, consider using rosy red minnows or various other species as well.

Western ribbons (which you probably have) aren't too hard to get onto F/T mice if you scent them with fish. I haven't had much luck with northern ribbons, but I'm hoping to try again in the future.

So mice if you can, live or fresh killed fish if you can't.

Oh yeah, I've never heard of one actually eating crickets, despite rumors to the contrary from pet shops.

Jeff Hathaway
Sciensational Sssnakes!!

[Oliverian]

As soon as I scented pinky rats with trout, all of my ribbons and garters exept one took the rats right away.

If your ribbons eat live fish, I personally would first convert them to dead fish or fish chunks on a lid or something, and then try the rat or mouse pink. It isn't neccesary to do it this way, but I found that they accept the rodent better if they're used to eating things off a tray. (my pinky rats were F/T, btw.)

I've actually heard from a few sources that a diet of only rodents contains too much fat for a ribbon or garter that's supposed to eat fish, ect, but I can't prove it. It sounds like a reasonable theory though. I alternate, feeding FT rat pinks one feeding, and vitamin dusted trout chunks the next. The snakes are doing very well, and I find they're growing faster than they were on an all-fish diet. (shorter time between sheds)

And Vanan, you're right about the thiamine deficiency issue. I've seen firsthand the effects of a snake fed the wrong feeder fish, and it's not pretty.

Good luck with getting your guy to eat rodents, auskan. It shouldn't be too hard. :)

-TammyR

[Auskan]

Thanks Tammy and Jeff. I fed mine today and, because I hadn't read Jeff's post prior to getting the feeder fish, got goldfish, but I'll know next time to go with the minnows. He ate 9 (which was all I had) in a short space of time. Its hard to know how many to feed but I'll figure it out by trial and error I guess. I had the same idea Tammy - to alternate feeding pinkies and fish, so I'll probably try pinky in a week or so and ask the petstore for some fish that have recently died (they always seem to have some floating in the feeder tank) to scent it with.

[Oliverian]

... I have no idea whether the disease or condition that killed the fish could possibly do any harm to the snake, but I would think that the snake would probably take a pinky scented with freshly killed fish more readily than a pinky scented with rotting smelly dead fish. Just buy a goldfish or something to scent with, they're like 10 cents anyways.

You can also just go fishing and use cut up chunks of frozen trout. But if it's easier for you to feed the live fish, then by all means go for it. :)

-TammyR

[Vanan]

Tammy has a good suggestion about feeding trout chunks, BUT don't forget to supplement with calcium and vitamins as it's not the same as feeding whole prey, guts, bones and all. Also I am a believer of what Tammy mentioned about feeding rodents to non rodent feeders. Some garter species cope better with it but there have been suspect cases of many natricines' death related to feeding too much rodents. This is usually "proven" by fatty liver disease. A build up of fat cos if the rich diet leading to liver failure. I use the term "proven" in quotations as I have not heard of any documented cases but only of suspect cases. There's been an ongoing debate about this for years.

[Jeff Hathaway]

With respect to "fatty liver disease", I think part of the solution is to keep them on a restricted diet. Garters might eat worms and fish every couple of days, but if they eat mice every couple of days I think you'll have problems. All of our garters are on just f/t rodents on a similar schedule to our corns- ~7-12 days between feedings, with occasional fish or worms if we happen to have some extra and feel like giving them a treat. I know people who have kept garters for many years on just mice. Not so sure on ribbons, as I don't have the experience with them long term.

Jeff Hathaway
Sciensational Sssnakes!!

[Oliverian]

In my limited experience garters tend to be a lot more thicker-bodied than ribbons, so I would guess that they could handle a higher-fat diet than ribbons. That's all just speculation, though.

BUT don't forget to supplement with calcium and vitamins
Oops, yes. Don't forget the supplements. :)

-TammyR

[Vanan]

It's not just about thickness of body which denotes a garters capability to handle rich food. It's their natural diet. There are garters which are definitely thicker than any ribbon but only eat slugs and worms!

There have been suspect cases of fatty liver disease in eastern Hognoses even!

[C.m.pyrrhus]

Thamnophis in general are hardy and take a great variety of prey naturally. I have caught them myself eatting mice, fish, lizards and even crayfish. A herper photographed a nice Wandering garter devouring a bird! They, to me, are opportunistic creatures.

They like a bit of variety. I feed fish which consists of guppies, rosy reds, chubs and shiners, depending on species and relative size. These make up a fair amount of thier diet. Mice pinks are given several times a year. I had a small breeding colony of grey tree frogs which I fed the tadpoles and growing frogs even. I on the other hand have had no luck with earthworms like so many use.

I have always enjoyed them, and being a hardy snake, they even add to the pleasure of collecting them. Ribbons and Garters alike I feel add to life with a broad diet. Cool to watch them keeping their eyes alert as they dart into the water to catch a minnow, gotta give them abit of that Thamnophis hunting fun.