Feeding Gerbils Instead of Mice or Rats

[eyespy]

I've worked as a veterinary surgical tech for 15 years and seen thousands of snakes that died an untimely death due to liver diseases such as fatty liver disease (the reptile version of cirrhosis) and gout. These problems are caused by a diet too high in fat and protein that the animal cannot effectively metabolize. Too low temperatures can contribute to this problem but it's mainly overfeeding that causes it.

Ball pythons were one of the most common species we saw, but I can't say for sure if they are more prone to it. Since we were a surgery-only clinic we didn't really have the tools needed to track the husbandry of a patient over its lifetime. It might just be that balls are very popular and not very active so we ran into more balls with liver disease.

Both of these diseases are usually fatal, if in the early stages you can go in surgically and remove the fatty or calcified damage and hope the liver is still healthy enough to regenerate. However, since snakes don't show obesity, dropsy and jaundice the way mammals do in liver failure it's very tough to get an early diagnosis.

[marisa]

There are SOOOO many variables!!!

I mean one could feed high protien high fat mice to a snake on a meager schedual, while heating him minimum.....he be a fat snake although not "overfed"

Someone else might feed rodents better suited nutrionally to a snake, have high heating and feed every 3 days and have a fat snake.

Or two people could be doing both those things above and have slim snakes.

I think there are too many factors for anyone to say what schedual any snake should be on. All of them are slightly individuals, get different quality feeder mice, have different heat gradients, etc.

That's why personally I just use the animal to tell me when it wants to eat. I know that they can be gluttons though, (corns big time!!) So I feed one prey item. If the snake is hungry enough every 5 days, so be it. But like I mentioned before, some go for two weeks. Even once three weeks before I saw enough activity to feel he was hungry enough. If the snake is getting a "fat" look then I hold off even more days after I notice activity.

I keep a gradient for my corns at 90 warm side - room temp (around 70 here) and they use all sides. Nothing better than allowing them to choose what temp they want and not limit them to the normal room temp - 82 gradient, IMHO

Marisa