I don't know that we know. It is definitely more healthy than not eating, which reliably leads to death after not too long (a handful of months) in hatchling colubrids and which can sometimes be avoided by offering boiled prey for a time. It is arguably more healthy than scenting prey with a live lizard, which even when CB from QTed stock is a possible disease vector. It is definitely preferable in every way over stomach tube feeding of a slurry. So there are situations where feeding boiled prey is the least worst option.Originally Posted by Homebody
A deep dive into the literature on the health/nutrition issues would be fun. Here's a study that shows that P. molurus expends less energy digesting cooked food compared to raw, which might be advantageous to certain snakes during certain life stages: Boback, Scott & Cox, Christian & Ott, Brian & Carmody, Rachel & Wrangham, Richard & Secor, Stephen. (2007). Cooking and grinding reduces the cost of meat digestion. Comparative biochemistry and physiology. Part A, Molecular & integrative physiology. 148. 651-6. 10.1016/j.cbpa.2007.08.014.
Whether the nutritional differences in cooked prey would offset those potential benefits, I don't know. Whole rodent prey isn't already borderline deficient in any nutrients, so it isn't obvious that cooking it would be a big problem, at least in the short to medium term. I wouldn't cook a snake's prey unless there were some clear benefit, though.
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