tastes like chicken

[Boots Hawks]

I have always fed my boas mamals, rats, mice and so forth. I understand though they also eat birds. It might be cheaper to buy a couple of those dollar each chick. Give em a little grain for a couple of weaks and wam,, KFC snake feast. Has anyone ever fed with birds? Is there any problems with it? What about nutrition, how do they compare? It might be nice for them to have some veriety to the menu. Right now the only choice they have is white, black, butt, nose.

Thanks for the input

Boots H.

[DaemoNox]

You know there is really no need at all to throw in variaty, they really dont think that way. Chicks, if you feed them, you will find out very fast why they are often used in some species to clean out their systems; and it comes out very bad. I think they dont vary too much from rodents, but I do know some snakes can get hooked on them and not want anything else, plus the whole salmonella thing you could introduce into them.

[Boots Hawks]

I never thought about salmonella, I have heard about reptiles having it, I guess they could get it from chickens. I did not realize they could get hooked on the chicks either. But what really was interesting was that they use birds like a laxitive. I learned something their. I almost went to my dad and got a chicken to see how that would work, glad I didn't. I guess I will give up that idea until they develope a pamper for a snake.

Thanks,
Boots H.

[Boots]

It is not a bad idea. Back in the early '90 my roommate and I fed our boas on chickens. It took about 30 minutes for mine to realize that the chick was food, but after that it took them no problem. The good thing about chickens is that they are cheap depending where you live. I think we picked up about a dozen for about the same price as a single mouse. You just need to find the chicken plant in your area. Only problem was raising the ones they did not eat till then next feeding, but that is another story. Back then we never thought about not feeding live or freezing them. Freezing them would have made a lot more sense.

Jason

[ToddBecker]

I completely agree with both moderators here. Some species do not do good at all with change and any type of birds seem to be a favorite of most. It can be extremely difficult to ever get them back to eating rodents. And just as it is difficult to occassionally find the right rodents you will undoubtedly find times where you can not find the right fowl. The bowel movements after a chicken is horrendous. YOu think they stink after rodents, wait till a large python takes a couple chickens and you will find a new definition of stank. On a more serious note, I went through a stint with some of my burms where I fed them chickens from the local flea market. They were much cheaper then rabbits so I thought what the heck. I pre-killed the chickens and offered them to my burms. For several weeks this went on with know problems. Then out of the blue, my 10' female albino died. The vet performed a necropsy and discovered that while the snake was swallowing the chicken either the beak or the dew claw (spur on teh back of the legs) ripped the snakes stomache open and she bed to death internally. I tried to convert them back to rabbits but it took several months. Usually had to chase a chicken with the rabbit until they got accustomed to the scent, taste of the rabbits again. TO minimize this risk, I highly recommend you feed prekilled chickens and modify them before feeding. I used a pair of diagonal cutter and cut off the chickens feet oabove the spur and cut their beak off. I know this sounds drastic but to me it was better then the possibility of injuring or killing my snakes. Hope this helps, Todd

[Aaron_S]

From my understanding, chickens will make the worst smell possible when they come back out. They also put on a lot of growth for the snake for some reason. I knew this kid who was able to feed his brother's burm chicken thighs from the grocery store!

[Artemis]

I have always fed my boas mamals, rats, mice and so forth. I understand though they also eat birds. It might be cheaper to buy a couple of those dollar each chick. Give em a little grain for a couple of weaks and wam,, KFC snake feast. Has anyone ever fed with birds? Is there any problems with it? What about nutrition, how do they compare? It might be nice for them to have some veriety to the menu. Right now the only choice they have is white, black, butt, nose.

Thanks for the input

Boots H.

Baby CHICKS.....?

Sniff:no:

I feed f/t rats... and somehow it seems ok to me.. maybe cause rats are icky.
Poor baby chicks.

[PDXErik]

Baby CHICKS.....?

Sniff:no:

I feed f/t rats... and somehow it seems ok to me.. maybe cause rats are icky.
Poor baby chicks.

Any different than pinkies or fuzzies? It's their lot in life, they are prey animals, that's why they have so many babies.

It is sad to see something die so that another can live, all that I can do is respect the life they give and make sure that they don't suffer as much as I can control.

Those f/t rats died, too.

[error_911]

I've been wanting to vary my snake's diet for a while now. So far, he gets rats, hamsters, and guinea pigs (rarely). He's had degus too, though probably as many times as I can count on one hand.

He's never had any problems switching between prey, and I've always wanted to try him on birds. I had always thought I'd pick up a budgie and let him at it, but I starting to think that may not be the best idea.

I noticed a site in the UK selling pheasant as prey, but I don't know where I'd find that around here. Also, what about fish or other reptiles? For example, a live goldfish would make quite an attractive prey I would think.

Has anyone had experience with alternate feed other than chicken?

[adelinadeluca]

I have always fed my boas mammals, rats, mice and so forth. I understand though they also eat birds. It might be cheaper to buy a couple of those dollar each chick. Give em a little grain for a couple of weeks and wam, KFC snake feast. Has anyone ever fed with birds? Is there any problems with it? What about nutrition, how do they compare? It might be nice for them to have some variety to the menu. Right now the only choice they have is white, black, butt, nose.

Thanks for the input

Boots H.
I don't know.. you should give their natural food