Feeding Chondros Birds?

[mainbutter]

It puts your GTP in unnecessary danger

Agree

wont be as nutritious as mice

Disagree

and will be much more expensive.

Depends on the birds.

Really the only affordable feeder bird for the most part are f/t chicks (as in chickens). Birds are highly nutritious feeders, and in I wish that more species were available in more sizes. Many morelia species prey on birds, though some more than others. I'm not an expert on GTP prey items.

I've seen the videos of feeding live birds (usually finches) to GTPs. These are vids of someone getting a kick out of seeing an animal die, and to a lesser degree, the hunting capabilities of a tree-dwelling snake. IMO it's a bad idea, and too many of those people are just getting a sick thrill from seeing death and suffering. Also it has the potential to injure your snake. Especially living in a walled-in enclosure, getting GTPs to strike at flying birds can be dangerous, particularly from the snake colliding its head with the cage. Birds can be quite capable of defending themselves as well, and beaks can make for surprisingly bad eye injuries.

If you want to feed your snake a bird diet, or want to try birds because of a feeding strike, go for it. Just give F/T or pre-killed a shot first.

[Wh00h0069]

Wouldn't lizards and other tree dwelling things be more a part of their diet? Don't laugh if I'm wrong because I know nothing about these guys. I know eyelash vipers eat lizards. I saw a special on tv where they filmed them eating during the day for the first time ever to prove they are not nocturnal and every single one grabbed lizards running up the trees towards them.

What DO chondros eat in the wild?

From my understanding, in the wild they eat birds and mammals. I would imagine that they eat more birds than mammals though, since they hunt from branches.

[tcutting]

The one guy had it right. Though they can and will eat birds in the wild, their diet still is mainly rodents. but you can feed them either one just F/T is still the best way to go. Personally I would feed them rodents.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morelia_viridis