am i the only one

[ezraIII]

My doctor feeds f/t chicks to his snakes. He says that it helps get picky eaters to eat, and when I asked him about poop being smellier, he said he didn't notice a difference. As far as nutrition goes, he had a clutch of bp eggs hatch this spring, so it seems to be good. Prices are cheaper too.

Thanks for the feedback and the validation. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, there seemed to be more calcium in the fecal material, if I'm right, that extra calcium could be absorbed by gravid females to provide better egg quality.

[Freakie_frog]

Thanks for the feedback and the validation. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, there seemed to be more calcium in the fecal material, if I'm right, that extra calcium could be absorbed by gravid females to provide better egg quality.

Is there a problem doing this? No not really your snakes are eating they are healthy and in the wild they will eat birds as easily as rodents. The reason we feed rodents is that they graduate in size as the animals grow. So from hatching to adult 3500 gram female there's a rat for that. With chicks there is considerably less flesh than a rat they are mostly legs and wings. So once you get past a 200 gram snake you might have to feed 4-5 chicks to equal the same food intake as feeding rats. And as the snake grows that number will increase.

Then comes the problem of if you ever for any reason have to sell or get rid of them. I can tell you I wouldn't even consider a BP who had been fed chicks for fear of having them get imprinted on them, I have enough trouble with Mousers.

Lastly comes babies. They don't make a chick small enough for a baby Ball Python and babies 99.99995% of the time have to have live prey to start. So your back to dealing with rodents.

If you never plan to breed or sell your current snakes then chicks will be fine..But it's when you plan to do anything else with them that a snag may happen.

[ezraIII]

Is there a problem doing this? No not really your snakes are eating they are healthy and in the wild they will eat birds as easily as rodents. The reason we feed rodents is that they graduate in size as the animals grow. So from hatching to adult 3500 gram female there's a rat for that. With chicks there is considerably less flesh than a rat they are mostly legs and wings. So once you get past a 200 gram snake you might have to feed 4-5 chicks to equal the same food intake as feeding rats. And as the snake grows that number will increase.

Then comes the problem of if you ever for any reason have to sell or get rid of them. I can tell you I wouldn't even consider a BP who had been fed chicks for fear of having them get imprinted on them, I have enough trouble with Mousers.

Lastly comes babies. They don't make a chick small enough for a baby Ball Python and babies 99.99995% of the time have to have live prey to start. So your back to dealing with rodents.

If you never plan to breed or sell your current snakes then chicks will be fine..But it's when you plan to do anything else with them that a snag may happen.

Very valid points all. I do continue to mix their diet between mice and chicks. I will move them to rats as size dictates. I will keep chicks on the menu as long as I can. I don't fear imprinting because all my pets take birds and rodents with equal abandon. Thanks

[Ladybugzcrunch]

Related to chicks but a little off topic. I was wondering if anyone ever got their snake to eat a chicken EGG. Boy that would make life simple wouldn't it LOL. Baby Bps would have to eat quail eggs though lol. Just a silly thought.

[Egapal]

The reason we feed rodents is that they graduate in size as the animals grow. So from hatching to adult 3500 gram female there's a rat for that. With chicks there is considerably less flesh than a rat they are mostly legs and wings. So once you get past a 200 gram snake you might have to feed 4-5 chicks to equal the same food intake as feeding rats. And as the snake grows that number will increase.

This may be a valid argument regarding chicks but the thing about chicks is that they grow up to be chickens and an adult chicken would be too large for a ball python. Rodent Pro (first site I could think of) sells Quail of all sizes http://www.rodentpro.com/catalog.asp...l=feeder_quail

Then comes the problem of if you ever for any reason have to sell or get rid of them. I can tell you I wouldn't even consider a BP who had been fed chicks for fear of having them get imprinted on them, I have enough trouble with Mousers.

This would be my biggest fear with having my snakes on quail or chicks.

Lastly comes babies. They don't make a chick small enough for a baby Ball Python and babies 99.99995% of the time have to have live prey to start. So your back to dealing with rodents.

Again rodent pro sells quail at 7.25 to 10 grams as 1 day old. So clearly you could breed your own quail and service BP's. My understanding is that you can also store the eggs at cooler temps for quite some time and then incubate them later. This would allow you to control your prey size much more precisely. I have read about people doing will feeding quail to snakes. Another nice up side to breeding quail is that they are tasty for humans to eat. Its possible that a rat might taste well but I certainly couldn't admit to eating them in mixed company without having to answer a ton of questions.

If you never plan to breed or sell your current snakes then chicks will be fine..But it's when you plan to do anything else with them that a snag may happen.

Once again, couldn't agree with this part more.