Feeding a wild caught mouse/rat to a snake?

This is just a curiosity question, but has anyone on the forum tried feeding a wild caught mouse or rat to their pet snake? If you have can you tell us about your experience with the feeding?

Ive captured multiple but i never feed them to my snakes. I can just be a freak but i worry about parasites and diseases being introduced to my stock. I dont want any of my snakes falling ill. I have 14 i dont need any falling ill or dying.

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Originally Posted by Grim

This is just a curiosity question, but has anyone on the forum tried feeding a wild caught mouse or rat to their pet snake? If you have can you tell us about your experience with the feeding?

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No reason to try it to tell you it's a bad idea. Here's a few reasons:

1. Wild rats are often vicious by nature (having to spend their lives hiding from wild predators). Domestic rats are bred for tameness. Your bp can take down a wild rat/mouse but why expose it to the fight and probable bacteria laded claws?

2. Speaking of probable bacteria... wild rats are known for carrying pathogens. You are introducing all kinds of potential problems, not only to your bp, but to your human family by bring a wild rat into your home. I've put down an entire tub of rats because a wild rat chewed through two 2x4's, got into my rat building, and put a hole in a tub. I didn't know if interchange happened but it seemed likely.

3. Domestic rats are cheap and plentiful... why feed a wild one at all?

This would be a bad idea just from the disease standpoint. Plus, you don't know what that rodent has been eating, so it could have recently ingested some form of poison that would in tern kill your pet (had a cat die this way when I was little). I would say its just something that shouldn't be done.

Bad idea for all the reasons stated above...

What others have said, just not a good idea these days with the things we know and captive bred supply of food so readily available. I suppose it could be ok if you do regular fecals on your snakes and are willing to treat for parasites often. Definitely not a money saving trade off and you could very well end up killing your snake. That said, my dad used to shoot squirrels and feed them to his burmese back in the day. You're basically trading a free meal for not so free, to purge, parasites with a chance of even introducing something fatal.

Let's see

Parasites. agressivity, and the fact that you have no idea where it has been before feeding it off (could have got into rat poison which usually take 48 to 72 hours to kill)

The question is do you value your snake and is it worth the risk? Only YOU can answer that! Personally I would not do it.

Personally I agree not to feed wild rodents to pet snakes just because of the poison risk alone. I'm just trying to satisfy my curiosity. I think that if someone who would want to try wild rodents could take precautions and do it successfully. Such precautions would be to observe the rodent for a few days for poison related symptoms then euthanize the rodent and freeze it to kill parasites and pathogens. Any other thoughts.

The problem with parasites, is that a lot of times their eggs can withstand freezing then hatch once passed through the animals system in their feces.


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Now I'm getting more curios. I've been reading up on the different parasites that wild rodents and domestic rodents and they seem to be the same. The major difference is that domestic rodents are less likely to have them. So now I'm wondering how often has, if ever, anyone had to deal with parasites from domestic rats?

I've had mites from a f/t rat I bought from pets mart. It was not a fun situation. Parasites are little survivors with adaptations to expand their population in even the most foreboding of environments. They're "less advanced" than other forms of life so it is easier for them to have these adaptations.

(Sorry my biology nerd is coming out lol)

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Originally Posted by gaitedappy

I've had mites from a f/t rat I bought from pets mart. It was not a fun situation.

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I'm surprised you got mites considering f/t is usually sold frozen. I'd think that the mites wouldn't be able to survive.

In regards to the OP's question, there's to many cons and not enough pros.

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It's really just a problem with arthropods and similar taxa, their eggs are able to survive the freezing process (in some cases). Basically they go dormant until ideal conditions are met, of course this process is not indefinite, but can certainly last a long time.


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Ok so in closing. If you take the wild rodents and use precautions to eliminate the risk of poison and aggression you would still have the parasite risk. The parasite risk would be greater because wild rodents have a greater chance to carry them. Sound about right?

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Originally Posted by Grim

Ok so in closing. If you take the wild rodents and use precautions to eliminate the risk of poison and aggression you would still have the parasite risk. The parasite risk would be greater because wild rodents have a greater chance to carry them. Sound about right?

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Basically yes. It's still a huge risk, but that is the most basic way to put it... But one must also consider the internal parasite thing as well, though that would be going along with your last sentence. Still a huge risk though.


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I don't even let my cat have wild mice or rats. It's one of the leading ways for a cat to get tapeworms. I certainly wouldn't put one of my snakes at risk like that. I'll leave them to the wild bull snakes that hang out by the hay bales - so far I've only ever seen one wild mouse here, and the next day there was a very smug looking snake sunning itself by the paddock.

risky...

on the other hand, i personally know of a few ball pythons that escaped and found many months later having grown a lot, with no illness after all that time feeding on wild rodents. they just got lucky i guess.

remember the saying "u are what u eat."

Edit: for example, i live in the city and would not feed wild city mice/rats that probably feeds on garbage to my snakes.