Fluffs

[badbunny42]

Hi

I've been feeding our little Lightning (Chequred Garter) pinkies for a while and she just gulps them down with barely a stretch. Does anybody have any thoughts on upping her to fluffs? The care sheet on this site doesn't seem to mention anything larger than a pinky.

Thanks

Ben

[katach]

I think there are people who feed fuzzies. I don't think anything with too much fur is a good idea though. It has been known to cause intestinal blockages. I only feed pinkies so maybe those that feed the older mice can chime in on this topic.

[Steveo]

I've also been warned about fur blockage. I use rat pinkies, which are a little smaller than adult mice.

[Invisible Snake]

Yeah you should try using rat pinks and let us know how it goes.

[EasternGirl]

How big is your garter? You want to be careful not to overfeed even if the snake acts like she wants more than is good for her. I always use the rule of thumb that when the belly has a nice bulge in it...I stop feeding. I have snakes who would take 10 pinkies in a row if I gave them...but that would just end up making them sick. I feed my adult eastern female...who is three-feet-long...two to three small pinkies every 6 days. I feed my smaller snakes...who are about a foot long...one small pinky a week and that is plenty.

[-MARWOLAETH-]

I think you should stick with pinkies because garters have a high metabolism and are adapted to eating smaller food items.Or am I taking rubbish?

[Selkielass]

Rat pinks are taken eagerly by my snakes, but they've become quite fat on them. I've switched them to fish 3 weeks a month, rodents one.
Mice are cheaper and lower in fat than comparatively sized rats. Some here have written about how easy it is to skin a frozen mouse dipped briefly in warm water so only the skin is thawed.

[Stefan-A]

Garters are adapted to eat the widest practical range of prey sizes. Anything from tadpoles a fraction of the size of the snake's head to fish that weigh half as much as the snake.
High metabolism is an answer to the problem of high energy expenditure, which is an answer to the problem of having to cover a lot of ground, which is an answer to the problem of finding enough food. Sit-and-wait works pretty poorly if your diet consists of amphibians. Rodents are far more predictable.

A properly hydrated snake shouldn't have any problems passing fur.

[indigoman]

Rat pinks are relished by my T.marcianus and concinnus. However i always feed a varied diet.

[Mommy2many]

I am putting my big girl on rat pups and the others are on pinks. I also worry about the fur issue. I also vary the diet between mice, fish and worms.

[badbunny42]

Thanks all.
She is 62cm (about 2foot), and currently eating a whole pinky and about the same volume of salmon each week. I think I'll dump the fluffs. Better safe than sorry. I wonder if ChrisUK wants to feed them to his cat?

Thanks all.

[chris-uk]

I wonder if ChrisUK wants to feed them to his cat?

My cat? It's the wife's cat. ;)
Despite his posturing I don't think Mortimer would know what to do if he found a mouse (dead or alive) but it could be fun watching him.

Lightning has good proportions and is growing really well, better than her sister. I think Lightning will be a really nice, big girl in another year. And to think at one point I was thinking that her temperament was so bad that we'd have to give you Eskerina and keep Lightning.

[kueluck]

I was reading on the garter snake facebook page about feeding fuzzies and came across this “snakes use the fur as digestive cleaning aid and clean out their intestine using undigested fur in order that they don't get a build up of waste and bacteria in their gut”. What do you guys think?

[guidofatherof5]

Never heard that before. Was there any documentation to the statement?
I don't see this as a viable reason to feed fur bearing mice to garters.
Just my opinion.

[kueluck]

Nope. There is a post showing the snake poop and the person was concerned about the fuzzy not being digested. Someone commented about the fur cleaning the intestines out, compared it to humans using fiber. I just asked for documentation on this. Thanks for that.
Never heard that before. Was there any documentation to the statement?
I don't see this as a viable reason to feed fur bearing mice to garters.
Just my opinion.

[chris-uk]

I read the same post Gail, and I was also quite dubious about it. It's almost like someone's thought about undigested fur and decided that it must act like a brush. I can't see how it would remove bacteria, and if there was larger debris stuck in the gut that's a more significant problem.
It's probably information from the same sort of place as "colonic irigation is good for you because it cleans all the undigested meat from your intestines" and "if you eat meat if can take 7 years for it to pass through you digestive system". Written and supported by pseudo-scientific nonsense.

[kibakiba]

Well I eat meat a lot... I guess I'm totally full up and I'll be set for a few years! Diet time! :D
... Hah.