Question about Feeding Frozen Baby Chicks?

Hello all!

So I was on Underground Reptiles website before popping into the store to get frozen mice for Tsarina and I saw this. I've never heard of anyone feeding their BPs frozen baby chicks, just wondering if any of you guys out there have tried this? Or is this a big no-no?


Thanks!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tsarina

Hello all!

So I was on Underground Reptiles website before popping into the store to get frozen mice for Tsarina and I saw this. I've never heard of anyone feeding their BPs frozen baby chicks, just wondering if any of you guys out there have tried this? Or is this a big no-no?


Thanks!

---

I had a few some years back that preferred a few chicks to mice !
They're were only 10p each as well .

I couldn't face dangling those cute chicks though - so to make it easier for me - I cut their heads and legs off so it they looked like little balls of feathers .. true !


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

I give mine chicks occasionally for variety. He was mildly suspicious at first but likes them and still eats rats too with no issue. Birds are a good portion of their wild diet, especially for males. Of course, we really have no idea exactly what they need in their diet, except that feeding all rats is known to work fine, so it’s kind of still a proceed at your own risk.

Thank you both for the feedback!

I think I want to give it a try, just for variety. I've never heard of anyone feeding their BP frozen chicks, I was unsure if they would be able to digest the beak? I kind of figured it would be a no-no, since I imagine that the beak and claws would scratch her esophagus on the way down?

Would it be suitable for a female BP? Tsarina is three years old and a good size, I think the chicks would be a decent size meal for her. They look about the size of a small to medium rat which is what I've been feeding her.

IMO its a big no no. Last thing you want is a bp that won’t eat anything but chicks. They don’t need a variety, rodents are their primary diet and much healthier for them.

Balls are obnoxious in the fact that they tend to become imprinted on their favorite food easily and if you get one imprinted on chicks you may find yourself in for a nightmare when they get bigger. Chicks are not a bad food source, but rats and mice are better in almost every way, and imagine trying to fill up a 2000g bp with chicks when it gets that big... lol

The beak and claws are pretty squishy since they’re so young. I’ve done both. Also my bp is a garbage disposal who has no intention of imprinting on any food. As far as primary diet/healthier- birds have been found in some studies to make up a larger % of the wild male ball python diet than mammals and a decent % of the female ball python diet. Of course, this is things like young African grays and other local birds and not parrots. There’s no real way to tell what’s healthier since we don’t know actual dietary needs. All we do know is that plenty of people have raised long-lived bps on rats alone without known drawbacks so that at least is a proven route in captivity. So it is a proceed at your own risk proposition. I do it, but I do still maintain a mostly rat diet for him and didn’t try it until he was over 1000g and still had no intention of ever skipping a meal. I also have my dude in a large bio active enclosure so my keeping philosophy isn’t the more common style here. There’s benefits and drawbacks to all of it, and the biggest is really that deviating from simpler methods needs to be done more carefully and you should be able to identify issues well. I do hear giving chicks is much more popular in the UK. Both I and my bp are happy with the occasional chick and I do feel comfortable enough with the support from their wild diets to do it, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend either for or against it.

I gave my male BPs chicks for awhile and never had any issues with them imprinting on them. Quite the opposite. A few of them refused chicks, probably because they've eaten rats their whole lives. Most have taken at least one rat-scented chick though. One snake took them without any scenting at all. He's a garbage disposal. That said, I only offered chicks half the time for several months. They never made up the entirety of my snakes diet. No injuries or problems digesting them either. Rats teeth and claws are pretty sharp, but they get those down just fine. Beaks and feathers aren't much different.

I only stopped feeding chicks because I decided to breed my own feeders. I have enough room for mice and rats, but not chickens. I liked giving the snakes a little variety though, so I might go back to it sometime in the future.

I've done this occasionally with my boas. Be aware that feeding chicks equals unusually smelly poos... Just in my experience. I never had any issues feeding mine chicks, but didn't try my BPs.