Rat allergy+feeder idea

I have this idea, but I want everyone's lovely opinions first :) So firstly, I'm highly allergic to rats. I know kinda crazy. I feed my ball pythons f/t (safer than live for both me and the snakes haha). Though last night I had a little episode from the thawed rats, my allergy is pretty severe. I tried getting allergy shots for it but apparently they don't have one for rats :( Anyways here is my idea/question:

1. What are other alternatives to rats that I can feed my ball pythons? I was thinking gerbils. If I'm not allergic to gerbils, I could probably breed them and feed them to my snakes right?

2. Anyone tried frozen Guinea pigs from rodent pro? Will ball pythons eat them?

Please give me your opinion on the matter, thanks!




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As for the guinea pigs, I mean the little ones. Not like the adults--that would be too big!


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What about chicks or quail?

Hairless Rats.


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Guinea pigs are born to big

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Originally Posted by coldbloodaddict

Hairless Rats.

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good idea :) you can still get an allergic reaction when you touch them, but with frozen thawed that should be easy to avoid.

but i think other things work as well. chicks or quail can work if they are the right size, same goes for guinnea pigs and gerbils i think. i heared that gerbils are super agressive and dangerous as live food.

i heared some people feed their largest BPs small bunnys. i think thats a bit crazy because they are larger than the largest rat. and then there is this sad story where several hundred juvenile bearded dragons were found in horrendous condition at an airport, where many were already dead or severely injured and the reptile sanctuary saved dozens of these that were in good condition and basically had to do triage. and, well, it turns out, ball pythons and quite a few other reptiles eat pre-killed bearded dragons.

does your allergy include mice?

for their health, they need whole food items because they rely on vitamins and nutrients that are found in the internal organs, but apart from that, i think they can eat pretty much anything as long as the size is right. i mean, no, lets limit it to mammals and birds and maybe other smaller reptiles. but then, they go after body heat, so mammals or birds it is.

i feel kinda guilty that somehow these ridiculously small handbag dogs come to mind. :rolleyes:

The vet we use for out dog is highly allergic to rats...and only rats. When I had my two boys one developed an absess down by his "boy parts" and needed to have it removed, we had to find another vet fast as she couldn't even be in the same room as a rat. We are getting two new pet rats soon and will take them to the same vet we use for my bunny, they can see rats without risk of a hospital stay! ;)

I'll assume that "allergic to rats" includes mice and ASF. I know you can get f/t chicks, but you may need to scent them with rat for a while to convert your snakes.

What about feeding with Those yellow dish gloves?

Or possible buy a Hazmat suit? Feed Bp's like your from Breaking bad?

Thanks for everyone's inputs, I'll try to answer everyone :) As for chicks and quail, well I raise them as pets and I love them so I can't get around the idea of feeding such things to my snakes lol. I figured baby guinea pigs might be too big but perhaps not for my 5ft female? I'm severely allergic to rats, I was in the same car with one (had to take my sisters pet rat to the vet) and my throat started to close. Frozen/thawed is always better because it's less of a Hazard...usually. I don't think I'm allergic to mice, but I'm kinda afraid to find out. Hairless rats might be good to keep the floating hairs down but I'm not sure of the dandruff? I wonder if my snakes would like a naked rat? Lol. Haven't tried African soft fur rats, but again kinda scared to find out. Lol I kinda already use gloves and tongs 😁 hehe.


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Do you have a face mask too, that would help one would think....:gj:

the problem with the hair is that the saliva of rats contains the antigens you are allergic to. well, their sweat and so on also contains it, but as they clean themselves they distribute the saliva in their coat, it dries up, and now you have these tiny antigens sitting in the hair, ready to come loose and fly around. so its not really the hair flying around, its tiny particles containing the antigens that become airborne with the help of hair.

so, one thing that could help is to not thaw them in a bag in water, but directly in the water, and hope that your BPs like wet rats. as long as its wet, there should be no particles flying from the fur. apart from that, a mask that can hold back fine dust would be a good idea. when you use a mask, and you get red eyes from airborne antigens, but your throat does not close up, then you know the mask helped you.

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

the problem with the hair is that the saliva of rats contains the antigens you are allergic to. well, their sweat and so on also contains it, but as they clean themselves they distribute the saliva in their coat, it dries up, and now you have these tiny antigens sitting in the hair, ready to come loose and fly around. so its not really the hair flying around, its tiny particles containing the antigens that become airborne with the help of hair.

so, one thing that could help is to not thaw them in a bag in water, but directly in the water, and hope that your BPs like wet rats. as long as its wet, there should be no particles flying from the fur. apart from that, a mask that can hold back fine dust would be a good idea. when you use a mask, and you get red eyes from airborne antigens, but your throat does not close up, then you know the mask helped you.

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Thanks for info! This explains some stuff lol! I'm going to try a mask and see how it does. It's a lot of work raising ball pythons when you're allergic to their good source haha.


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Originally Posted by Scirlygirl

Thanks for info! This explains some stuff lol! I'm going to try a mask and see how it does. It's a lot of work raising ball pythons when you're allergic to their good source haha.

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by the way, this also explains why so many people are allergic to cats and so few people are allergic to dogs. cats clean their fur every day or even more often than that, that involves licking, so cats constantly spread these airborne antigens in the form of really fine dust.

dogs dont clean their fur. their hair is sticky and greasy. they might scratch themselves, they might lick their paws or genitalia, but thats about it. so dogs dont produce airborne antigens, while cats carry a cloud of these dust particles with them. and people that are allergic to cats will show no response to a hairless cat, unless they touch it and later touch their face/eyes or something like that.

its the same with rats, the same mechanism.

D I C K Van Patten's snake sausages...:)

http://naturalbalancepetfoods.blogsp...specially.html

I'm not sure I'd want my snakes to be the "guinea pig" for this experiment.... but this brings to mind someone who used to post on the corn snakes forum who fed their snakes chicken meat. Then again... with BPs being the picky eaters that they can be... not such you'd have much luck getting it to eat the chicken meat anyway.

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Originally Posted by sho220

D I C K Van Patten's snake sausages...:)

http://naturalbalancepetfoods.blogsp...specially.html

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ummm.... WHAT? beef, nothing else, just beef? this is a joke, right? i suspect it is ^^

just in case... BPs require certain vitamins and nutrients that they get from specific internal organs of their food items, especially but not limited to the liver.

here is how to make an appropriate sausage for a snake: put a dead rat or mouse into one of these tubes (synthetic or intestine) that they use for making sausages.

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Originally Posted by Pythonfriend

ummm.... WHAT? beef, nothing else, just beef? this is a joke, right? i suspect it is ^^

just in case... BPs require certain vitamins and nutrients that they get from specific internal organs of their food items, especially but not limited to the liver.

here is how to make an appropriate sausage for a snake: put a dead rat or mouse into one of these tubes (synthetic or intestine) that they use for making sausages.

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Not a joke. The old timers here probably remember the threads when these first came out...pretty amusing. Surprisingly, snake sausages were never taken seriously and never caught on...:rolleyes:

Just because it is beef doesn't mean it doesn't contain various parts including organs.

Maybe OP has a non-allergic friend who would be willing to make the mouse/rat sausages? Once it was all bundled up in the sausage casing, the allergins would probably be pretty contained so it shouldn't cause a big outbreak.