Captured escapee"s

[littleindiangirl]

Great point, not to mention, small insects like crickets can be infested with some crazy internal parasites like coccidia that could be passed on when eaten; and not to mention most wild mice/rats have pests (worms, fleas etc) too!

[hoax]

I never thought of this...

I have one that escaped that I reintroduced. He was only gone for a few days and I had no poison out...

All seems going good.. but you can bet I wont do it again!

Mike

[escomaya]

wow, you opened my eyes too, never thought of these risks either, the 2ASFs I lost were the only 2 housed together and I put them back in with each other, its been a few days and they seem fine so far, no poisons in my house also

thanks for the info, very good point

[akaangela]

I don't have (usually) a problem catching my rats (haven't had one loose in the house yet) but asf's they are the best escape artists I have ever met. Even the babies JUMP. Rats look before they jump, not asf's they just JUMP and they can jump very high!!!! I sware they are made out of flubber. I have only recaptured 1 (alive) and we gave it to a woman who wanted a trio of asf's as pets (I TOLD her they don't make good pets but she wouldn't listen) so I gave her the escapee free. Usually I find them dead thanks to my dog, (yes my dog catches more asf's than my cats do) but he doesn't eat them. I toss them for just the same reasons you gave. We don't spray but we do have ant poison out.

[Fearless]

They are escape proof... Human Error!!! Playing with the rodents when drinking!

Finally I am not the only one that does this!

And any soft furreds that I have ever lost are almost instantaneously eaten by my cats as they hit the ground so never had this issue either.

My cats are kinda weird and are way nice to regular rats though, so this thread should be posted in all the feeder forums cuz i never thought about them finding something bad while out for any certain time

[Melicious]

That's a great thought. Thanks, hon. When I start breeding I'll definitely keep that at the forefront of my mind.

[MarkS]

Sorry, sounds like baloney to me. If I recapture some escapees I generally feed them off unless they were caught in a snap trap and they've been dead for a while. There is such a thing as being too paranoid about what your snakes eat. Who's to say you don't have bugs running across your rodent cages at night pooping on their food or flies that get in and get eaten or wild house mice that sniff around your rodent racks. Why throw away perfectly good food that probably has absolutely nothing wrong with it just because it had a day or two of freedom? If you're that worried maybe you should start irradiating your rodents to make sure all the bacteria is gone too.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

LOL, Mark I think you are nuts. Let me ask you something. If you catch a wild mouse or rat in your house, would you just toss him in with one of your $500 dollar snakes?

[MarkS]

LOL, Mark I think you are nuts. Let me ask you something. If you catch a wild mouse or rat in your house, would you just toss him in with one of your $500 dollar snakes?

A wild one? No... Although in all likelihood it probably wouldn't do any harm... But one that's gone AWOL for a couple of days? I've got no problems with it. These animals are not so tender and delicate, they probably have some of the strongest digestive juices in the animal kingdom which is why they get along so well eating carrion and diseased creatures in the wild. When you think of it, eating healthy clean rodents in the prime of their lives is unnatural. These guys were designed by nature to pick off the stragglers and the weak. So to me, throwing away perfectly good food is wasteful and unnecessary.

[Mike Cavanaugh]

A wild one? No... Although in all likelihood it probably wouldn't do any harm... But one that's gone AWOL for a couple of days? I've got no problems with it. These animals are not so tender and delicate, they probably have some of the strongest digestive juices in the animal kingdom which is why they get along so well eating carrion and diseased creatures in the wild. When you think of it, eating healthy clean rodents in the prime of their lives is unnatural. These guys were designed by nature to pick off the stragglers and the weak. So to me, throwing away perfectly good food is wasteful and unnecessary.

You are absolutey right, I am sure in the wild Ball Pythons eat plenty of diseased, paristite infested, weak animals. Exactly why the snakes themselves are so full of parasites and other crap... One of the main contributing factors as to why captive bred reptiles that are properly kept as pets live on average considerably longer then wild.

So you said you would not feed a wild rodent you find. Why wouldn't you?