Jello for snakes??? with appologies to Bill Cosby

[sschind]

I have a pretty disgusting idea for feeding garters but I am wondering if it might work. Let say you took a bunch of healthy food (mice, nightcrawlers, trout etc.) and threw it all in a blender and simply ground it up into a big slurry. Then you took some of the unflavored gelatin and mixed it in and let the mixture gel on a thin cookie sheet and cut the resulting Jello into strips and fed it to the snakes. Would the gelatin be bad for the snakes.

I doubt if I would ever go through the process because I don't think you could freeze the Jello, and I don't think it would keep that well in the fridge but it is something I have thought about in the past, mainly as another reason to break out the blender, or should I say The Bass-O-Matic.

OK, I just found Allan's page and read his recipe for Garter snake Jello. Has anyone else tried it.

[Stefan-A]

I can't think of anything apart from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. :D

No, I wouldnt try it. I would try sausages, though.

[zooplan]

I´ve tried something similar:
Fischpüreeplatten eine Futtervariante für Thamnophen (http://www.zooplan.net/articles/fischpueree.html)
I think google will give you a raw translation?

[drache]

okay
I read that and it reminded me of the ground beef thread
It's basically ground fish with supplements
there's no gelatin involved
however the only thing I can see as being wrong with gelatin is that it's a processed substance and I don't know what goes into the processing of it

[zooplan]

yes,
but when you freeze the grounded fish it stick together and become a homogenous bulk.

[stonyloam]

Gelatin is nothing but protein, so I can’t see how it would do any harm. It is made by boiling bones and extracting the proteins. If you have ever made chicken soup (by boiling a whole chicken, bones and all) and put it in the frig, the fat comes to the top and solidifies, but underneath the soup also solidifies. That is a kind of gelatin. It should freeze just fine. Just my opinion.:rolleyes:

[salzar]

its calles repeto consomae the IRON CHEF made it once on the food network, they eat any thing in japan. heeeeee heee haaaa no not really!!! just funnun
bye
michelle

[sschind]

I can't think of anything apart from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. :D

No, I wouldnt try it. I would try sausages, though.

were you serious about the C-J disease. If so, how would grinding up a bunch of stuff that you would normally feed whole cause any more of a problem? If you were joking then I'm sorry I missed it. I know the mad cow thing was brought up in the ground beef thread which, yes Drache, did prompt this thread:) The problem with ground beef (aside from the poor nutritional value if you are talking about simple hamburger) is that there is not much structure to hold the food together. It seems it might be difficult for a snake to get a grip on it and swallow it if you know what I mean. The gelatin would serve to hold it together. The sausages are pretty much the same concept except the agent that hold the goop together is different.

I tried the free translation of your page zooplan but it did not work too well (I got the gist of it though) Like I said, I don't know if I would try it but if I get a lot of snakes that won't switch to mice then it might be an option. It might be kind of fun.

[Stefan-A]

were you serious about the C-J disease.
I wouldn't consider it a serious threat, but there was a big health scare waaay back.

[drache]

wouldn't any kind of animal protein one grinds up sort of form its own gelatin
isn't that what aspic is?
so unless one added a lot of water, one could just somehow shape it I suppose
still, I can't see any of my snakes eat much of anything that doesn't hold together
how would one make the sausages?
with small rodent bladders and intestines?
fish guts?
seems tedious

[Sid]

I have not try this, but below is a link to a trout anf geliten mixture Alan Francis uses:
Alan's Garter Snakes - Maintenance of Garter Snakes (http://www.gartersnake.co.uk/maintenance.htm#Home-made%20garter%20snake%20food)

[RZL36]

Please don't take offense, but why would you go through all that trouble?

I always thought the formula to success was rosie reds to rodents.

Once on rodents, is there anything better?

[sschind]

Please don't take offense, but why would you go through all that trouble?

I always thought the formula to success was rosie reds to rodents.

Once on rodents, is there anything better?

Well, for one thing, Rosie reds are on the list of fish that contain thiaminase which is not good for reptiles, and for another thing, not all snakes switch to rodents. That is why I specified in my posts that I do not know if I would try it unless I got a lot of snakes that didn't switch to rodents.

Some people simply feel that variety is the best and a steady diet of rodents, especially for a species that did not evolve with rodents a main part of their diet, is not a good thing.

Another thing, personally, I could see this as a major time saver if a person had a lot of snakes. A couple of hours in the kitchen with a blender and a pot of water and you have snake steaks for months. Simply take them out of the freezer and you are good to go. The mixture would have everything you need, rodents, fish, worms, a bit of everything. I think if I kept only garters I might be tempted to go this route even if they did eat rodents but since I have other snakes I would never be without the rodents any way.

[Snaky]

I've tried it :)

I don't think the gelatine will do any harm. I used trout at the time, just chopped it up to little pieces and blended my way to a big piece of blurry. After that added the gelatine and blended it again. It worked, but at the moment I don't see the advantages that much. My picky eaters didn't eat it, but the rest did. If you have a lot of snakes it will probably easy that way to feed them... because you can easily but pieces from it. When it becomes hot ( for example if you put it directly under the spot), it will become a mess again though.

[RZL36]

Good points sschind.

Say if I were to start doing blacknecks, I would need to something like this?

I also hear that rosies don't contain thiaminase. Goldfish do, but rosies don't. Is this right?

[Lori P]

The minnow thing has me scared now! I've read both-- that minnows do, and minnows don't contain the enzyme. But then I also read that diff. breeds of trout contain it too. So honestly... how do we know what's safe???

[sschind]

I could see the gooey mess thing in a tank under the lights, not something to look forward to.

My blacknecks were pretty young when I got them but they went to scented pinks the first try as soon as they were big enough. I'm hoping that is the case when I get them to breed in a year or so.

As far as the Thiaminase goes, according to the list that James provided earlier in this thread (could we make that a Sticky if it isn't already) the rosies, which are just a color varient of the fathead minnow as far as I know, does contain the enzyme. Brown, rainbow, and lake trout are listed as not containing it. The thing about the list is you have to look closely. Herring is on both lists but different species, one found in the great lakes the other in the atlantic (I guess I'll have to give old Ma Baensch a call)

Right now I have had to resort to giving my female albino checkered rosies because for some unknown reason she can't swallow mice. She was eating them fine for a long time then one day I checked here cage after she ate and she could only get it down about 3" past her head. She puked it up the next day. She had eaten larger pray several times and even when I went back to pinkies she couldn't get them down. She doesn't seem to have any problem with the rosies though. I'll be picking up some trout this afternoon though.

You are right though. it does appear to be very confusing adn all I will say is that it will probably get worse before it gets better.

[RZL36]

I just read on wikipedia that rosies do contain thiaminase.