Field mice as feeders?

[threezero]

So I have a friend that also owns BP. He only has one BP and I have 2 atm. He just met someone that owns a farm locally and claims to set traps for field mice all the time and catches alot of them, he has no problem handing over the field mices for us to feed our snakes. My frd thinks its ok, should be safe considering they live in the fields not in the city. I'm still concern over disease. what do you guys think? I would really help cut down the rat bills

[wilomn]

As long as you're sure no one is putting out poison you should be ok. If you have any doubt though, don't use them.

[TheSnakeGuy]

The rodent bills are worth it when it comes to the health of your animal. Do not feed wild caught food. Not worth the risk to save a few bucks.

[Capray]

I don't reccomend it. That might be different if you lived in the natural habitat of the ball python, in west Africa, and came across wild African Soft furred rats or whatever they eat in the wild, and may not have as big as an effect on their metabolism and parasites that they may have evolved to cope with. I'm not sure if that's true though.

If you do it, it's at your own risk really. We can't stop you from doing it, but be prepared with money for vets if a snake does get sick from it's parasites, it is likely to happen.

Personal experience- When I was younger, we fed the mutual household corn snake wild rat pinks that we found in out chicken coop, dying baby birds, and even dead mice that she would eat on her own if she saw it. She had no visible ailments and lived a healthy life, but very likely had worms and other parasites in her. Note that corn snakes are native to the Americas and might eat those animals in the wild.

[Andrew21]

My main problem with that aside from they could have harmful parasites and poisons on/in them is that they are dead for any amount of time before you even get them out of the trap. By then there is bound to be all kinds of nasties in them. I personally wouldn't risk it even if you caught them alive then killed them and immediatly froze or fed.

[Pythonfriend]

you really need to worry about poison.


apart from that, i would say go for it, theoretically, in practise there are problems. Compare it to domestic cats that are allowed to go outside, a friend of mine has cats and they regularly bring home birds and mice and rats. Sometimes they bring home living birds and let them loose in the living room, with the result of birdpoop everywhere. Most often they bring home a mouse, and then eat it in the living room, they only leave behind some intestines and a piece of fur and one time i witnessed it. I almost got sick, and wont forget the sound when the cat broke down the skull with its teeth and ate it.

But poison is a real problem, pesticides are also poison, and pesticides that are quite harmless to humans and other mammals, but kill all plant life or all insect life or all fungal life, can still be harmful to reptiles. I guess thats the deal-breaker, unless it happens to be an organic farm you have an incalculable risk there. A cat can deal with any chemicals that dont kill a mouse, because both are mammals and the cat is bigger. But BPs are reptiles.

So, theoretically, im all for it and it has a kind of aesthetic to it, but in practise farms are full of chemicals designed to effectively kill entire kingdoms of life (insect or plant or fungusl) while sparing only mammals, without consideration of collaterals. Examples of extreme unwanted side-effects are easy to find, poisoned insects did drive some bird populations into the ground, and poisoned corn did drive some bee populations into the ground. Would we notice if some product some farmer uses to, lets say, kill all insects would also kill all reptiles? No, we wouldnt notice, at least it would take a long while to notice it.

But then, if someone else uses the same mice for his BPs and it works..... i guess its still possible if you go down this road that soon 20 BPs get supplied by that source, and it all goes well for many years, and monsanto launches a new product and all the snakes suddenly get sick or die because the farmer tried it.

Nature is not the threat here, as i said, cats eat wild-caught animals all the time, and they come back with the occasional tick or diarrhoe, and if they come back with an injury its in most cases either modern life (sharp metal or glass or a car) or another cat that hurt them. But farms can be stacked with different poisons, each targeted to effectively kill thousands or even hundreds of thousands of species while only sparing mammals/humans.

[Coleslaw007]

Y'all ever heard of freaking parasites?! NOT worth it imo.

[Pythonfriend]

My main problem with that aside from they could have harmful parasites and poisons on/in them is that they are dead for any amount of time before you even get them out of the trap. By then there is bound to be all kinds of nasties in them. I personally wouldn't risk it even if you caught them alive then killed them and immediatly froze or fed.

when a farm has mice, you can catch them with glue or nets or even a vacuum cleaner, when they have mice they have A LOT of them. What people imagine when they think about a mouse trap, the wooden thing with the metal spring mechanism on top, is only good to catch 1 mouse that annoys 1 household. when farmers think about a mouse trap, they think about something like a plastic barrel cut in half horizontally, with food inside, set up so that mice can get in but cannot get out, to trap 10-50 per day.

the real concern is poison, and thats a big one. Intestinal parasites would be something to keep in mind, so you would have to regularly send in stool samples for lab analysis, but thats maybe 30-50 bucks once a year. External parasites are either adapted to a furry environment or a naked scaled environment, so that should be rare. But the potential of poisoning does break the deal, unless its an organic farm. (or unless other snakes tried these mice without problems AND you can get a document in writing obligating the farmer to inform you BEFORE trying any new pesticide or fertilizer or whatever new chemical agent it may be).

[Andrew21]

My point still stands regardless of the trap used. Lol

[wilomn]

Just what parasites are you guys thinking might be transmitted from these field mice? Please be specific.