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  1. #17
    BPnet Veteran Kcl's Avatar
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    Re: thawd out chicken for ball pythons?

    Your proposed diet for your ball python is deeply inappropriate for the species and I sincerely hope you'll change your decision on this.

    The biggest difficulty in altering the diet from the "tried & true" is that there is not a solid answer on the exact nutritional needs of the ball python. However, there is some information available on the wild diet (see this link for a 1997 study http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/1...50009809386744).

    Some issues with each of the items you've chosen:

    - strips of raw chicken:
    1) As has been previously noted, much chicken is injected with saline solution, I believe up to 15%. Snakes generally do not have the ability to process those kinds of salt levels. While I do not know at what point the salt will have severe effects on a ball python, excess salt has been known to kill garter snakes whose keepers fed frozen fish with added salt.
    2) As has been previously noted, commercial chicken generally contains hormones. These have been known to have a wide variety of negative effects even at significantly sub-lethal dosages on a wide variety of animals which ranges from the more expected reproductive issues to significant immunosuppressive effects (citations avail -ask). The dosage you are giving a snake will be significantly higher than the dosage you are consuming yourself.
    3) Most commercial chicken has antibiotics in it. The use of antibiotics to promote growth in livestock has been implicated in the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections. Effects of these antibiotics on snakes' natural and necessary gut flora? Unknown.
    4) Raw chicken breast is only muscle meat and will naturally be significantly lacking in calcium and a variety of other nutrients compared to whole prey. Likely higher protein and lower fat than either the wild diet or the regular captivity diet. Will this fit actual dietary needs? Unknown but unlikely.

    - Raw fish:
    1) Not ever identified as a prey item for wild ball pythons.
    2) Even keepers of fish eating snakes need to be careful of the fish species fed as many fish contain thiaminase which can cause a lethal vitamin deficiency
    3) Effects of feeding fish to ball pythons = unknown. Likely to be negative due to vast departure from wild diet

    -Egg
    1) Not ever identified as a prey item for wild ball pythons
    2) Species that eat eggs are often anatomically specialized to do so. Many of them crack the shell with their muscles after swallowing and then spit the shell back out
    3) Effects of feeding eggs to ball pythons = unknown. Likely to be negative due to vast departure from wild diet

    This is not comprehensive but hopefully helps you to reconsider your chosen diet in favor of something more species appropriate.
    Whole chicks and quail may be appropriate for ball pythons as at least the study linked above found that 70% of prey items for male ball pythons were birds. However, even this is something that should likely really be attempted by more experienced keepers as exact nutritional needs are unknown and the all rat diet has been shown to appropriately support this species in captivity.

    Tl;dr - please just buy some rats.

    1.0 Pastel yellowbelly ball python -Pipsy
    2.0 Checkered garter snakes - Hazama & Relius
    1.0 Dumeril's boa - Bazil

  2. The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to Kcl For This Useful Post:

    JodanOrNoDan (03-23-2017),Kaorte (03-23-2017),Kira (03-23-2017),SKO (03-23-2017)

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