Best Food for BP's

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Originally Posted by spalding11

oh no, I DON'T DO THIS...and it suggests cooked chicken, cockroaches, mice, rats, etc in snakes for dummies...

(i work at a library...i see a lot of uninformational books):weirdface:weirdface:weirdface:confused::confused::confused:

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Good..
but with books like that out there no wonder there are so many bad, uninformed pet owners out there...

Any chance of said book disappearing to forever be counted as "lost" on the library catalog :rolleyes:

haha...that one, and 30 million others!
another one didn't even say certain temps the enclosure has to be or even mention HUMIDITY!

i hung my head in shame...:tears:

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Originally Posted by spalding11

haha...that one, and 30 million others!
another one didn't even say certain temps the enclosure has to be or even mention HUMIDITY!

i hung my head in shame...:tears:

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You're making me kinda happy my local lib has like zero books on snakes!
It made me sad that I couldn't find any when I first got into snakes... now I'm glad I didn't .

well...it would be more useless information stuck in your head like me, i got a lot of that!:rolleyes:
good thing you know better!

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Originally Posted by truthsdeceit

I don't know if it's been said already.. I didn't read the whole thread. But.. it has been said that rats are more nutritional than mice...ect. This seems to me to be an old wives tale. I've been told it many times even believed it for a while till someone pointed out that there is no scientific evidence that a rat is more nutritionally valuable than other rodents. They're bigger so therefore carry more of everything, but snakes do just fine on whatever rodent you can get them to eat. As long as your feeding the whole item.

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There are studies done on value of prey items. Mice have lower energy per gram, higher ash... the problem is not that value of prey items is not know but the exact needs of each species of snake is not known.


http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/zoo/Who...nal02May29.pdf


I'll feed what the snake will eat. I have one girl whom I tried to switch to rats for over a year, including 'coating' a rat (never again...) She was spotty at best I gave in and gave her mice again and she has not refused a meal since.

I would generally agree about gerbils I'd not feed them unless as a last resort. There are a lot of (incorrect) comments in all kinds of places trying to say gerbils are a natural prey item for Balls but this is not true gerbils are native to mongolia.

You forgot...

Chickens
Rabbits
Children
Neighbors yapping poodle


ok ok not the last 2... But im stuck on 12 hour night shifts haha


oh ya you also said BP's

I have personally seen BP's eat mice, rats, gerbels, hampsters, and even chics. Yes baby chickens. It gave a whole new view on road runner lol.

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Originally Posted by kitedemon

There are a lot of (incorrect) comments in all kinds of places trying to say gerbils are a natural prey item for Balls but this is not true gerbils are native to mongolia.

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Gerbils have a huge geographical range. Pet gerbils are native to Mongolia.

Granted jumping rats are found all over the place but 'gerbils' you can buy are mongolian.

I feed rats. Simple, cheap, and convenient. When I got one of my snakes it was feeding on mice. Offered a rat the first time, and she didn't take it. I offered it again next week, and she ate it right up. No problems since. (NOT the same rat :O)

Mooses (Mooice? LOL) are not predators, but they get very aggressive during mating season. They probably called them predators to dumb it down for the 5 year olds and idiots that watch the channel. For the ball, they probably used it because it was available. Plus, the people who made the show didn't want to be eaten by the big, bad BOA...