chickens?

[scottyy]

so i want to start feeding my tic chickens for two reasons 1 because they are cheaper than rabbits and 2 because i found a poultry farm not farm from my house.wat are the advantages/disadvantages of feeding live chickens.i have heard that it will make their feces stink really bad but not much other things. anybody here feed chickens to their monsters?

[Snakefood]

none of my guys are big enough for that but I have a few customers who come get chicken for thier snakes. They don't feed chicken exclusively, more often than not it is during the "fattening up" period for thier breeders as chicken is even higher fat than rats.

[scottyy]

so i shouldnt use them as a staple diet?

[stephanbakir]

First of all, DON'T FEED LIVE if you can help it.
Tics have a really good chance of getting hooked on tics. When I worked at the zoo, they had 7 tics on rabbits and swapped to chicken for 2 months when there was a shortage, 6 out of 7 refused to swap back for almost 3 months. And yeah, smelly poo.

[Snakefood]

so i shouldnt use them as a staple diet?

I would think that a constant diet of chicken would create an overweight snake in the end, especially if the snake in question is not a breeding female who would actualy use a good portion of that fat, while a non-breeder or even a breeding male probably wouldn't.

My customers who use chicken, feed rabbit (the lowest fat prey) when not glutting breeder snakes. And use the chicken before and after breeding to "fatten them up"

[scottyy]

well i dont plan on feeding her every week so perhaps it would compensate for the extra fat of the chicken?

[stephanbakir]

Adult retics should only be eating every 14-20 days when not in the breeding season, especially if they are males.

[scottyy]

well she isnt quite an adult yet but i just found a poultry farm and knew that some people fed their snakes chickens and figured i would see what everybody had to say bout it because they are way cheaper than rabbits lol

[Snakefood]

you only need 2 rabbits to feed one snake!! (breed them)

[stephanbakir]

A retic is a costly animal, not just to buy, but to house and feed and take proper care of. Chickens might keep it alive, but as a responsible keeper its your job to make sure it eats what it should eat, not what it can eat.

[stephanbakir]

Stay away from rabbits over 8 lbs btw, anything from 8-16 pounds is mostly fat, and pretty much guaranteed to be an X breeder.

[Snakefood]

1 netherland doe and 1 netherland buck produces 8-13 babies/litter. Pregancy is 31 days and the babies are 5 lbs by 9 weeks old!

[stephanbakir]

Nethers are awesome, so are New Zealands.

[Snakefood]

yes they are! but I find they have more bone and less meat/lb than the netherlands or california whites (I breed both)

[ineedsoap16]

What about flemish giants? An average adult is 15 - 20lbs.

[scottyy]

my problem lies in that the rabbit farms around me went out and buying them offline is quite costly

[Snakefood]

is there a livestock auction near you, you would be surprised how many rabbits come through those places. All kinds, all sizes.

[scottyy]

that i dont know but i will do some research and find out.