Alternative Reptile (Snake) Food.

I recently heard of an all natural reptile food and other animals as well (D-ick Van Patten's Natural Balance Pet Foods). Sorry had to hyphenate cause of censorship. No it's not vegetarian or vegan. It does contain meat. Here is the web site. So what do you think???? Would you use it? And if you do how does your Boa/Python or what ever you own take to it? :hungry:

Waste of money. You can't get any more natural than a whole rodent.

Hahaha!! I rem when the 'snake sausages' came out. I didn't know they still made them.
If they are properly formulated like a whole rodent prey item, and you could convince the snake to eat the things, maybe it would be "okay". Ideally a typical python should eat a rodent. I'm not sure what the point of processing a bunch of stuff and making it into a non-prey object does for the python or the keeper.

Not saying that I would ever feed a snake these things. Just wanted to know what everyone else thought.

Hi,

T-Rex used to make something similar (the snake sausages mentioned above) - but at least they used rodents. These things are made from beef. :confused:

I like the idea it has been tested etc but I'm not seeing anything that claims it is better than a whole rodent based diet - just that it is for people who do not want to use rodents as pet food.

I have no training so would someone explain to me why it is mentioned;

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Originally Posted by naturalbalanceinc

it does not contain meat by-products or grains such as corn, wheat, rice or barley.

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I assume that means that is an important point, but it is ok for the third most common ingredient to be Beet Pulp?

Granted the amount may be small if it is 69% water and 28% protein and crude fat (18% & 10% respectively) - I don't know enough to judge. :(

Also I'm always really torn by products such as this.

On the one hand I am not convinced they are in the best intrests of the animals.

Yet there is no denying the fact that the hobby as a whole may expand if the product was successful - preprocessed diets didn't do the numbers of household cats and dogs any harm after all. How many owners would take on a dog or cat if there was no choice but an all natural raw diet they had to prepare everyday?

The rodent feeding is seen as a stumbling block for a lot of potential reptile keepers - somedays I think that is a good thing some days I don't.

Personally I will stick with feeding my snakes whole rodents.


dr del

Oh my god. I couldn't stop laughing when I saw that. Thats HILARIOUS! If you can't take the heat of feeding mice, don't get REPTILES.

I will be a purist on this one: This product should not be on the market, period. People need to accept the fact that you have to feed rodents to snakes, or don't keep them. That, and it makes me a little sick to see snakes actually eating sausages.

P.S. for those of you who want to point out dog and cat food a.k.a. corn plus byproducts, I don't own any mammals right now, but if I do ever buy a dog or a cat I want to feed it a raw diet. If I can't afford it I won't get one. (prays to the money-gods :please:)

Edit: on that note, I wonder what people would have thought in the days before processed dog food? I assume people used to just go hunting and freeze some of the meat for dog food.
"They want us to give the dogs what? Little brown corn pellets?"

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an all natural reptile food

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Rat and mice that is an all natural reptile food :gj:.

Ball pythons are known to be picky, many people already have enough issues getting them to eat, that I don't see why anyone would make it even harder on them :rolleyes:

Anyone who owns a snake should be ready to feed rats or mice.

I won't say it shouldn't be on the market. If it's not harmful, then people have the right to choose what to feed the animal.
Dogs used to have to scavenge for food, but were still expected to guard the house. They ate garbage and leavings.
Later when people started to FEED dogs, they would feed them the offal and such.
Would you expect someone to feed their greyhound live rabbits? Or is a formulated dry dog food okay? Why would a snake be different? One day we might all see a time that most snakes eat a pre-formed diet.
I'll still feed my snakes rodents. One day i might look into the processed diets to see if I feel they are nutritionally complete or not, but right now, I'm not so impressed with what I have seen as ingrediants.

I highly doubt that 'pre-formed' diets for snakes will ever take off the way pelleted dry dog food did once upon a time for one simple reason; snakes are WAAY pickier eaters than dogs. I mean, my dog will eat anything from eggshells to wasabi peas. My snakes on the other hand...well, 2 out of my 6 ball pythons barely eat their rats and mice, which are as close to their natural diet as I'm going to get. Pretty much all dogs will eat 'dog food' but I would guess that very few snakes will eat 'snake sausage' or whatever.

That's just wrong. A guy could easily mistake that thing for a sausage.

I just wonder how they got the snakes to pose with that thing in their mouths.

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Originally Posted by icygirl

P.S. for those of you who want to point out dog and cat food a.k.a. corn plus byproducts, I don't own any mammals right now, but if I do ever buy a dog or a cat I want to feed it a raw diet. If I can't afford it I won't get one. (prays to the money-gods :please:)

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You do know they make grain free dog food and cat food dont you? Its a little expensive IMO but I feel its a great middle ground between kibble and raw.

http://www.canidae.com/dogs/grain-free-als/dry.html

that is just gross!

What's wrong with it?

Mice aren't natural BP food either.

I have to chime in here. I actually think this COULD be a good idea IF it could be done correctly AND if you could get the animals to eat it. Say that they made it in flavors. Mouse, Rat, Gerbil and ASF. They pretty much dumped them into a grinder whole, organs, bones, skin, stomach contents, and it spit out a fairly balanced chunk of meat. Now, you could then pick your appropriate sized prey down to the exact perfect grams. You wouldn't need to try to find pinkies for your small snake, and jumbo mice for your big one. You could just buy sausage which could be made out of any size of rodent they had. As for the "natural" crowd. No, its not natural. Nor do we all have natural color morphs of ball pythons, nor are they kept in a natural environment. Nothing else we do is natural, so do people freak out so bad about food? If all the dietary requirements are met, AND the animal has no problem eating it, why not feed it? It would be no different than feeding frozen thawed prey. Before you guys jump on me, I do feed f/t AND live, depends on the snake. I see this possibly being more of a product toward cornsnakes etc, which seem to be garbage disposals. Hell, you could even do lizard and frog ones as well.

I say go for it, if there is a company out there that will do it right, AND if your snake will eat it, no problem...as it is, the beef ones can take a hike.

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Originally Posted by Clear

You do know they make grain free dog food and cat food dont you? Its a little expensive IMO but I feel its a great middle ground between kibble and raw.

http://www.canidae.com/dogs/grain-free-als/dry.html

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Hey thanks, I knew there were "natural" dog and cat foods but I always thought most of them have corn and by-products hidden in the ingredients.

i think it may happen one day.... just its not advanced enough... look at crested geckos... rapashy diet isnt the natural food...

not worth it

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Originally Posted by icygirl

Hey thanks, I knew there were "natural" dog and cat foods but I always thought most of them have corn and by-products hidden in the ingredients.

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There are a number of brands. Orijen (which I use for my cats), Evo, Instinct, Go Natural, Wellness Core, etc.

I can't see that it would be easy to get a snake to accept those as prey. Also, when they say that there are no byproducts, I think it's not necessarily a good thing. Snakes eat whole prey items, not just the parts that we find acceptable for our own diets. It also has beet pulp and flaxseed meal pretty high up on the list. Anyway, it just seems like a lot of trouble when you can easily get what you know is a more natural and better balanced diet in a rodent.