Ribbon Snake Feeding

[Gamblingferret]

I was wondering if ribbon snakes would eat crickets or meat from the grocery store?

[CamHanna]

Ribbon snakes are primarly amphibian/fish eaters. They may take crickets but I'm not sure that they would be entirely healthy. I also wouldn't recomend meat (ie. pork, beef, chicken) from the grocery store as it will almost certainly not be eaten and is also quite different from the natural diet.

Some grocery stores sell smaller whole fish and, if they are small enough (doubtful), a ribbon snake may feed on those. Petstores sell feeder guppies and rosy red minnows; those are likely the way to go. Some people feed their ribbons mice but not all ribbons will eat them. Also, mice are much fattier than fish and frogs and may cause liver problems among other things. If feeding fish, it is important that you feed only a limited amount of fish that contain thiaminase, if any at all. Here is a list of safe and thiaminase containing fish, http://books.nap.edu/books/030903325X/html/64.html#pagetop.

Another popular option is to catch a bunch of minnows in the Summer and freeze them for the rest of the year. However wild minnows may have parisites. Guppies are very easy to breed.

Watchout for recently wild caught ribbon snakes. They will likely have parisites and don’t settle down easily.

Jonathan Crowe has a great ribbon snake artical here, http://www.gartersnake.info/articles/000260_questions_about_ribb.phtml It is certainly worth the read.

Good Luck
Cam