Food items you cannot feed a ball python.

[kc261]

Interesting question!

Gut loading is not as necessary with rodents as it is with insects. As long as you are feeding the rodents a good, complete, balanced diet, they make a good, complete, balanced diet for the BPs. At least as far as anyone knows. I don't know how scientifically it has been studied; I believe not really very much. But you don't hear about rodent-eating snakes with nutritional deficiencies like you do with certain species of lizards, so it must be a pretty good diet even if it isn't perfect. As John1982 said, if it ain't broke...

There are rumors that red food coloring (such as in some dog foods) should not be fed to rodents that will be fed to snakes. I have wondered if that one is tied to the ancient red food coloring rumor that has to do with a certain red food coloring that is no longer in use, but I avoid it just to be safe. I don't actually feed any dog food to my rats at all, but I did feed small amounts as a sort of supplement when I had mice. Then I decided it was foolish because the lab block was a complete diet, and any decent quality dog food was much more expensive. I can't think of anything else I've ever heard of that should not be fed to feeder rats due to it potentially harming the snakes.

Also, some people have concern that if the rodents are housed on phenol-containing bedding, that eating the rodent could possibly have enough phenols on it/in it to harm the snake. I know LOTS of feeder rodents, and even snakes, have been kept on pine shavings over the years, and it seems to work with no obvious ill effects. I would avoid cedar which contains a much higher level of phenols.

In general, if humans can eat it and it is good for them, then rats can eat it and it is good for them. There are some exceptions, so you might want to google it. The only issue is that the odds of you being able to make a diet that is as good as the good brands of lab blocks is kind of slim. Those are formulated to be a complete and balanced diet without any additional supplements needed. So my advice would be to keep that a very high % of your rats' diet. However, my opinion is that even if I end up slightly degrading the quality of the diet, the rats just ENJOY some variety, which is good for them too. Plus it keeps my costs down a little to give them leftovers.

One final thing that comes to mind is that you should avoid feeding off any rodents that have recently been medicated or had any sort of mite treatment or anything like that.