A few words from Alan Francis

[adamanteus]

Hi Guys, I just received a PM from Alan Francis. It seems it was intended for all of us, so here you go!

Hi James, and everybody else on the forum!:)

It's been a long time since I visited the forum - I'm not even sure I have visited since Jurgen was running it. It certainly looks as if the forum is busy, and I will try to find more time to visit. Especially if there are any more postings like that astonishing red eastern garter from Carolina! Wow!

I've had quite a good year for breeding this year, with flames, melanistics, cyrtopsis ocellatus, concinnus and infernalis, but still no success with the elusive San Franciscos - hopefully next year.

I'd be interested to know if anybody else out there has experimented with cat food. A friend of mine in Liverpool a few years back told me that he fed his garters on one of the better quality tinned cat foods. I didn't believe him, but tried it myself, and it seems to work well. Babies don't seem to take to it, but adults do, and I now feed the majority of my adult females on it, and have done for a couple of years. Haven't really encountered any problems with it.

Best wishes,

Alan
http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/images/green/statusicon/user_offline.gif

Didn't someone else start a thread somewhere about using cat food for their Garters?

[adamanteus]

Thanks for posting Alan, and welcome to the forum.:)
I have used cat food in the past for various lizard species, but never tried it on my Garters. The first question that springs to my mind is 'what effect does this diet have on the faeces'? Are they runny? Or smelly? It would certainly be a cheap alternative to the hundreds of pinkies I'm using at the moment. Which brand do you recommend, Alan.

[Elliot]

Actually, I'd be interested in this too.

[Lulu Bennett]

Alan is actually a member? welcome alan lol. (sorry, im running a lil slow lol)
i am not spending that much on mice at the mo but if i do manage to get the concinnus, flame and infernalis off Alan next year then i might consider it.
how much would you give a baby and an adult. about a teaspoon full?

[Snaky]

I hope Alan will have time in the future to visit us, would be interesting to know his opinions :) .

I've experimented with cat food and it works very good for some species. But buy some good cat foods, because some of them contain a lot of salt and rest products. And cat food contains a lot of proteïns, so I would't give them solely cat food. With young one's it's important to give them a lot of calcium with it, because otherwise they will grow to fast because of the proteïn shot. I was able to give it to young snakes also, of only a few months old.

I've tried and it worked with:
-cyrtopsis cyrtopsis
-marcianus marcianus
-sirtalis concinnus

Will in the future try some other species also :)

[zooplan]

Hallo Alan,
many things have changed since it was Jürgens site.

I tried cat food as addition to the normal diet of all my snakes and had different success, but never tried to change thier diet to only cat food.

[Elliot]

Since we're on this topic, does it matter what "flavor" it is? I'd like to try it for my younger snakes.

[adamanteus]

I would presume the fish varieties would be more popular with our Garters, I would only use top brands and I would be reading the ingredients list very closely...... but I'm going to give it a try.:)

[Elliot]

What would you want to watch out for in the ingreidients?

[adamanteus]

I'm not really sure, Elliot...... anything 'unnatural' I guess.

[Elliot]

I'm going to try it to see if it can save me from messing with fish until my younger snakes are big enough to eat mice (maybe only a month for the maritimes.)

[reptileparadise]

Welcome Alan!

I've tried catfood as well. Most of the snakes seem to like it, but I'm not to keen on the amino-acids in catfood. Cats need a lot of Taurine. I dont know what the effect of 'large amounts' of this amino acid will do to the kidneys of the snakes. Thats why I decided to feed it once in a while.

I also noticed that they didn't (!) really like the fish flavors. They go crazy with beef and lamb but they turn their heads for fish...

[jewel-dragons]

im also give them catfood,but also low fat meat!!! it's perfect,always in the fridge,and the garters like it very much!!!

[adamanteus]

What brand/flavour do you use, Kuno?

[Sid]

This is a new one on me. Think I will give it a try also.;)

[Snaky]

I've mainly tried fish flavors. An example was: Felix with salmon and trout. I would only give it as an extra food item, and not switch completely to it.

It is also a very good thing to help rather bad ( for example underfed ) turtles to get back going, for the turtle keepers :).

[Stefan-A]

It is also a very good thing to help rather bad ( for example underfed ) turtles to get back going, for the turtle keepers :).
But contains too much protein to be used for longer periods, right?

[Snaky]

But contains too much protein to be used for longer periods, right?

Yes, which is what I was trying to explain in the earlier post. Also always add Calcium if you give catfood, because there is to little in there for reptiles in proportion to the proteins in there.

[adamanteus]

Just for the sake of argument..... How do we know there is a higher concentration of protein in cat food than there is in pinkies?

[Stefan-A]

I meant for turtles, not necessarily for garters. :D

[Snaky]

I have it from my vet, because I used to base my diet mostly on catfood when I started with garters... She followed courses on this and saw this explicitely in one of her courses. I've never backed it up by digging in the literature, but I trust her.

[adamanteus]

I'm sure she is right, I also trust her!:D
It's a shame, as cat-food would make a very cheap staple diet. It seems that no artificial diet is without it's problems.

[adamanteus]

Well, just as an experiment I tried my Garters on cat food today. I couldn't get lamb or beef, someone said they didn't go for the fish, so I tried rabbit. None of them took it, a few investigated it, but then recoiled. In a few days time I'll try lamb or beef, if I can find it.

So, anybody want to buy some cat food?:rolleyes:

[anji1971]

Maybe you'll just have to adopt a cat.........;)

[adamanteus]

Actually, we're looking for one.:D

[Lori P]

I can send you the nice boy who moved into my house the other day. He's all fixed now. :-) :-)

[adamanteus]

Just stick him in an envelope then, Lori!

[Lori P]

(Cramming him into envelope, jumping up and down on it to get it sealed, taping it madly, stamping it with "FRAGILE" all over, poking air holes with a sharp knife, shaking it to make sure it's sealed)

On the way James!!!!!!! :D

[adamanteus]

Great. I'm sawing a cat-flap in the door as we speak!

[drache]

I heard they have cats in England
I know for a fact they have 'em in Wales and Ireland
I mean I've seen them there

I wonder whether kittens in the UK are "over the hill" at five month old or whether that's something to do with the American media culture

[adamanteus]

I heard they have cats in England
Can this really be true?:eek:

[Elliot]

One of my easterns ate the beef and the fish, but then again he will literally eat anything on the end of the tweezers.:rolleyes:

[Snaky]

I've had great results with fish flavoured cat food, James. Especially flavour 'salmon and trout' was easily accepted :)

[adamanteus]

I've had great results with fish flavoured cat food, James. Especially flavour 'salmon and trout' was easily accepted :)

Oh, right. I think it was Sjoerd who said, earlier in this thread, that he found the fish flavours less attractive for his snakes. Maybe I should try it for myself.....well, not myself...for my Garters!:D

[Lori P]

I wonder whether kittens in the UK are "over the hill" at five month old or whether that's something to do with the American media culture

I've always found it interesting (in my rescue efforts) that young kittens will get adopted. Young adults will get adopted. But those "teenage" kittens are the hardest to adopt, and I don't know why. Well, of course, the hardest to adopt are cats over 4, but as far as kittens go... teenage kittens always seem to hang around until they are close to a year, then they go. (Shrug)

[adamanteus]

We could do with Alan coming on and telling us the brand and variety of cat food he is having his success with.:)

[CrazyHedgehog]

I have used Iams chunky pouches a few years ago, there was a shortage of petshops selling pinkies, so when they ran out it was a nightmare (before I knew about trout!) a couple ate til they bulged, others just looked disgusted at the idea! can't remember the favours I tried though...

[Gijs & Sabine]

We could do with Alan coming on and telling us the brand and variety of cat food he is having his success with.:)

As far as I know Alan feed his garters Whiskas ( small pieces in gelee) and there are 12 bags in one box.
http://i134.photobucket.com/albums/q85/gijssabine/stoom.jpg

We feed this catfood now and then to our garters and most of them eat it, but they prever fish.
I don't like the idea of giving my garters only catfood, but for the ones who have seen Alan's collection, anyone can tell they're in absolutely great shape :)

[adamanteus]

I don't think I would even consider using only cat food, but I might be convinced that it's a useful and affordable supplement.

[drache]

well, once you know what they'll take, it's a great emergency back-up food supply

[Sputnik]

I am off to try this right now. I still have some good quality cat food that I bought for my skink, who is all sleepy now. My cats will get jealous but they can always lick the packet. :D

James, I have fallen in love again! This is Janosch, born on the 21st of November. He's the grandson of my lovely Milka. And as far as I know he has one little ginger brother who is still not promissed to anyone. They will be ready for their new homes around my birthday at the beginning of February!


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v630/MrsSputnik/DSC01222.jpg

[Sputnik]

I heard they have cats in England
I know for a fact they have 'em in Wales and Ireland
I mean I've seen them there



Are you being sarcastic or are you talking about the big cats that people spot ever so often? The escaped Panthers, etc? Apparently there is a large black specimen wandering round the outskirts of our town. :)

[drache]

I was being sarcastic - I doubt there's a place in the world without cats
but tell me more about the big cats - that sounds like a better story
I've lived somewhere once where there was a mountain lion you had to be careful of at night

oh and James
I think you absolutely should go for that ginger boy, if you can get your hands on him

[Sputnik]

Ah, phew, I would have been very surprised... :D


Well, people here occasionally see cats that are far too large to be domestic animals, especially in our local area. It's not always after having been to the pub. People, that is, not the cats, lol. A boy in my son's class saw one recently when he was out with his parents and a few days later it was spotted by other people. It is thought that they have either escaped from small private zoos, because people haven't been able to keep them properly or that they have been "abandoned" due to the dangerous animal act, which makes the keeping of dangerous animals far more complicated. (rightly so, of course!). As long as there are sheep and calves in the fields, these big cats can keep themselves alive in the wild, but tend to be shy or clever and keep out of humans' way the majority of the time.

BBC - Wiltshire - Moonraking - Big cats in Wiltshire (http://www.bbc.co.uk/wiltshire/content/articles/2006/09/20/big_cats_feature.shtml)

Weird Wiltshire - Big Cat Sightings (http://www.weirdwiltshire.co.uk/extra/bigcat.html)

Off Duty Police Spot Big Cat (from Wiltshire Times) (http://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/latestheadlines/display.var.1317602.0.off_duty_police_spot_big_cat .php)

www.ukbigcats.co.uk - The Definitive Guide To UK Big Cats (http://www.ukbigcats.co.uk/reportasighting.asp)

[drache]

cool
i had no idea
thanks

[CrazyHedgehog]

In the late 1960's the cool pet to have was a big cat, people kept them like... well like cats or dogs..! happily tamed (loosely speaking of course) and lounging on the sofa. When the wild animal act was brought in people unindated the zoos to give their pet a new home. but the zoos could only take so many.... so the alternative was to have your pet put to sleep by a vet. :eek: Many people could not do that and so gave the animal a fighting chance and turned it loose! so thinking about the amount that were actually set free.... is it any wonder we still have thriving cats here?

When a few breed too well, then there are more cats than the local land can support, its at times like these that they are seen out of hiding, one stalked my brother and his young son, My brother thought it was quite amusing until he realized the size of it!, picked my nephew up by the back of his shirt and ran as fast as he could back to the car.... My nephew remembers it as the day daddy showed him a big cat, then he suddenly flew through the woods!!!

Oh and that ginger kitten is just too damn cute!!!!!