F/T Kills Thiamine Important B Vitamin

[giaach]

Alright This is a question to all those who prefer Frozen Thawed over Live. I was doing some research on Ball Pythons and came across something I found quite interesting. Apparently an important B Vitamin called Thiamine is used by all living creatures to metabolize carbs and fats to produce energy. It is essential for normal growth and development and helps maintain functioning of the heart, central nervous system, and digestion.

However, the thiamine found in mice and rats is destroyed when that animal is frozen. This leads me to believe that Ball Pythons fed F/T are not receiving sufficient helpings of this vitamin. And could lead to malnutrition or pre mature death.

To all of those out there that do F/T meals, do you give vitamin supplements to your snake OR believe this whole study to be plain gibberish?

[MarkS]

So, if freezing destroys Thiamine and all living creatures need it, then why aren't YOU eating live animals????

[Jophis82]

I'm sure that we get B1 through other foods we eat or combination of foods and drinks. What else do snakes eat but animals???????????

[Chuck]

Umm not sure but my snakes seem to do fine on F/T and have been for a good long time. So who published this report a company pushing B vitmans?


Chuck

[Jophis82]

I'm new at this but it seems that F/T is just way to damn messy and to much work...Storing them, thawing them out, wiggiling them for your snake...I prefer real live food as they would have in the wild. You might call me different but I enjoy the hunt probably more than the snake does.

[frankykeno]

Alright This is a question to all those who prefer Frozen Thawed over Live. I was doing some research on Ball Pythons and came across something I found quite interesting. Apparently an important B Vitamin called Thiamine is used by all living creatures to metabolize carbs and fats to produce energy. It is essential for normal growth and development and helps maintain functioning of the heart, central nervous system, and digestion.

However, the thiamine found in mice and rats is destroyed when that animal is frozen. This leads me to believe that Ball Pythons fed F/T are not receiving sufficient helpings of this vitamin. And could lead to malnutrition or pre mature death.

To all of those out there that do F/T meals, do you give vitamin supplements to your snake OR believe this whole study to be plain gibberish?

If possible could you link to the site or sites you researched on Billy.

[MarkS]

This actually sounds a lot like an article I read several decades ago about frozen fish being an unhealthy feeder source for garter snakes. I wish I could remember more about it, but I seriously doubt that there is any actual evidence of frozen rodents being unhealthy for rodent eating snakes.

[dr del]

Hi,

Like Mark I remember this being dicussed concerning feeder fish for garters as the freezing turned the tyamin into thyaminase or something? Ironically the recomendation I remember was to try and convert them onto rodents if possible and add live fish feeders occasionally if it wasn't.

I tried to find a link to the artical but failed sorry. Hopefully someone knows where it is because my memory is not reliable enough for anything important.


dr del

[Michael314]

Could you please reference the paper/s and supporting organisations that this information comes from. Since people have been feeding F/T mice/rats to snakes for many generations now and seemingly to no deterimental effect.

In England it is illegal to feed live animals to another (excluding insects as food), nor is it legal to kill an animal for food without certain licences. Special dispensation is made for venomous research snakes as they are nearly all captured from the wild and will not take prekilled mice/rats.

[West Coast Jungle]

I can't imagine that feeding f/t would be detrimental but I wouldn't be surprised if live was healthier by having higher vitamin content as opposed to frozen.