Reptile Sausages

Feeding a snake artificial food is progress the same way that feeding your rats Hikari diet is progress, the same way that feeding your dog a high quality dog food is progress.
The artificial food can be formulated to be sure that each sausage has exactly what a snake needs, rather than trusting that each rat will have it all.
Rats can be raised on lousy diets of cheap dog food, will they have all the nutrition that your snake needs? Why do we try to find people who raise the rats on good diets? Because we want the snake to have all the good nutrients it needs.
I'm pretty sure that I will always prefer to feed rats from a good rat supplier rather than snake sausages. But as a product, they are not necasarily bad. How many years has the gecko diet been tested? When it first came out, how many people looked at it and said "Never! I'll feed MY geckos insects!"
It might die out, and it might catch on. Who knows? In ten years, you could have the majority of snake breeders touting snake sausages and denouncing that "old" way of using rodents.
You have to admit, a snake sausage will NEVER bite your snake! LOL. Unless.. it's a zombie sausage...
I'll continue to feed rodents, but I will also keep an open mind about them and watch tos ee what happens. There's a lot of people who love snakes, but can't stand to kill a rodent for them. If the sausages work, and the snakes are healthy and will eat them, it might make more people own reptiles, which means a larger base of owners that can support reptile interests.

Hi,

Just thought I'd point out snake sausages have been around for over a decade already.

It has been that long since I tried them but we had very little luck persuading the range of animals we had in the shop at the time they were food at all.

They are designed mainly for people who don't want to feed rodents rather than for the snake as far as I can see. As for being easy to chain feed then yes there is that but I never found it all that difficult to chain feed in the first place.

From my dim recollection of the last time we discussed this there was also some suspicion over the sausage "skin" - Something about it being hard to digest iirc.


dr del

I sent them an e-mail asking the same things you guys were and here's what he said:

Dear Rick,
Ball pythons are one of the most difficult snakes to take to our sausage. As I am sure you know, they can be picky feeders at best.
We have a test group of 60 ball pythons that we have been feeding for two years. Of the group about 80% of the snakes eat the Natural Balance sausage. Some snakes ate it initially; others needed it to be scented. Once eating scented sausage they quickly switched to unscented. All of the test group have been doing well on the sausage for over two years. As there is little roughage the stools are smaller, but as it has all the vitamins and minerals it is better that feeding whole prey.
If you have any questions please call me @ 805-379-3141.
Regards, Jim Brockett

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RGreen454ss

I sent them an e-mail asking the same things you guys were and here's what he said:

Dear Rick,
Ball pythons are one of the most difficult snakes to take to our sausage. As I am sure you know, they can be picky feeders at best.
We have a test group of 60 ball pythons that we have been feeding for two years. Of the group about 80% of the snakes eat the Natural Balance sausage. Some snakes ate it initially; others needed it to be scented. Once eating scented sausage they quickly switched to unscented. All of the test group have been doing well on the sausage for over two years. As there is little roughage the stools are smaller, but as it has all the vitamins and minerals it is better that feeding whole prey.
If you have any questions please call me @ 805-379-3141.
Regards, Jim Brockett

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well yes, but cigarette companies say that cigarettes dont cause cancer, so take it how you will

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RGreen454ss

I sent them an e-mail asking the same things you guys were and here's what he said:

Dear Rick,
Ball pythons are one of the most difficult snakes to take to our sausage. As I am sure you know, they can be picky feeders at best.
We have a test group of 60 ball pythons that we have been feeding for two years. Of the group about 80% of the snakes eat the Natural Balance sausage. Some snakes ate it initially; others needed it to be scented. Once eating scented sausage they quickly switched to unscented. All of the test group have been doing well on the sausage for over two years. As there is little roughage the stools are smaller, but as it has all the vitamins and minerals it is better that feeding whole prey.
If you have any questions please call me @ 805-379-3141.
Regards, Jim Brockett

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Now that's interesting. I, too, am a big fan of the "don't fix it if it ain't broke" philosophy... but, still...

I remember reading about these sausages when I first got into snakes a couple years ago. Never really had any desire to try them, though I don't really like rodents much. I just think it's cool the things they come up with nowadays.

I agree with Wolfy... just because I don't feed them now doesn't mean I won't in the future. Just depends on how things go, I guess.