Mice & Worms or just mice?

[annulataarethebest]

I say just mice.

[kibakiba]

Why? There are many benefits to a varied diet. That's like saying humans can live off one thing too. I understand humans and snakes are different, but, there are snakes that live solely off of night crawlers. Night crawlers may be mostly water, but a lot of garters thrive on them. A lot of garters also thrive on just live fish in the wild. So, why not use what they thrive on as an advantage and feed them a variety of food?

All of my snakes have grown faster and thrived on the varied diet, than the ones who ate mostly pinkies.

[Didymus20X6]

Especially when, as posted above, there are a multitude of benefits from a healthy percentage of nightcrawlers in the diet.

Mine don't even eat mice.

[kibakiba]

Mine all love mice (exception of Hades) but, I only feed mice once or twice a month to conserve them and save money. Everyone gets some pinky parts mixed in with the food, though, just not always whole pinkies.

[guidofatherof5]

I feed 70% night crawlers and have always believed there is more to them then is realized. My wild population probably eats a higher percentage of worms and appear to be very healthy.
I will be changing to a 50-50 worm/mice diet in the near future.

[katach]

My little ones enjoy the occasional chunk of salmon too. I too like the varied diet. It's especially helpful when your pet store has supplier issues and takes 2 weeks to get your pinkie order in....

[kibakiba]

So do mine. I only use it as a treat.

[xStatic]

I have to admit I'm new to garter snakes and my experience has been with rodent eating snakes only.. has anyone had problems with calcium deficiency in garters that are eating mostly eartworms or earthworms and pinkies only? I've read somewhere that non rodent feeders need to have calcium supplimented, but this seemed like it may not be true as I doubt many of the wild garters around her could manage to get down any rodent, and stumbling across a nest of small pinkies is quite rare I'm sure...

I've been planning on raising my garter on mice only.. and since pinkies have cartilage skeletons and not completely formed bones, moving up to fuzzies and small mice to keep calcium levels up

I have only just got her and haven't attempted to feed yet, but she is currently feeding well on pinky parts (info from the breeder). I was scared to let her feed on anything else as I didn't want her to start preferring worms of fish over mice.

Does anyone raise garters stricktly on mice? It seems like this diet, while simple, can supply all the nutrients needed to keep a snake healthy, with less frequent feedings

[kibakiba]

No. I've never really supplemented the earthworms I give my snakes. Maybe once every month or two. It's not really needed IMO, because the pinkies give them that.

I used to give Mama and Snakey nothing but pinkies. Absolutely no worms or fish. They got overweight really fast. There was nothing wrong with their lamp, and I'd wait about a week an a half before feeding them another when I started to notice how overweight they had gotten. They aren't like that anymore, now that I feed a variety.

[Jeff B]

I've been feeding mice and a nightcrawler inbetween and extending time to 10-14 days between mice as I believe some of my snake have become big boned (fat) so they are on a maintenance diet. I do agree with Don, if you feed only worms there is a lot of dirty black poop to clean up compaired to rodents. I started all my babies this year on worms instead of fish, and now have them eating cut worms and pinkies mixed, and while the grown rate is the same maybe better there is a lot more mess to clean up.