Supplement necessary or not ?

[GarterGuy17]

I was wondering if a supplement was needed if you were going to feed mostly fish fillet and occasional pinkys , but no worms if so how would I use it ?

[guidofatherof5]

Fish fillet lacks calcium and other minerals. You will need to add supplements.
As balanced a diet is best. Worms can be an important part of that diet.

[GarterGuy17]

I was thinking the same its just I'm not available to any worms where I live. I would have to travel pretty far to get some live bait , but then again I wouldn't know if they were safe or not.

[guidofatherof5]

I think it was mentioned in a different thread but don't you have a Walmart near by. As far as I know they all carry night crawlers in their sporting goods section.
Those worms are from DMF Bait Co. I purchase bulk worms from them and have never had a problem.

[GarterGuy17]

Then Ill be sure to order some from there when I get the chance. Thanks for the heads up.

[EasternGirl]

Steve...John and I were discussing this and I told him to start this thread to get input from other members as I do not know a lot about the supplements. If you could tell him more about the supplements just so he can use them until he can get worms...that would be a great help. I gave him a link for the supplements that you told me about. I was wondering if you can put them in water if the snake refuses to eat them on food...if so how much do you put in water? How often should you supplement the water?

[chris-uk]

I have these supplements :
IMAG0175.jpg

I'm not too obsessive about when I use them for the Cuitzeos, they both have a good diet with a mix of whole pinkies and fish every week. I think with a good balanced diet the only thing to watch for is to supplement the calcium, I use the calcium powder on their fish every other week.

The Checkereds and Blacknecks don't eat as reliably so I alternate the liquid supplements on alternate water changes (so, plain water, water plus calcium, plain water, water plus vitamin). So they may not be eating, but as long as they drink most days they will get some vitamin and calcium from drinking.

If I was feeding worms and fish I'd be more fussy about adding supplements because neither contains a lot of calcium. With pinkies there's a skeleton, organs and the brain containing all sorts of good stuff.

If you get a calcium supplement make sure it has vitamin D3, they can't absorb calcium without D3.

[GarterGuy17]

So your saying that if they don't eat you put it in their water or you put it in their water and not on the food ?

[EasternGirl]

Yeah...when you put it in their water...exactly how do you do that? I would like to know as well because my snakes seem to smell the supplement and then refuse the food if I sprinkle it on the food.

[chris-uk]

On the leftwing my pic there's a liquid calcium (plus D3)., then a liquid multivitamin, then a powder calcium (plus D3), then last on the right is a powder multivitamin. I obviously use the liquid ones in the water, the powder gets sprinkled on solid food.
As the fussy eaters tend not to eat anything which has been powdered I just use the liquid supplements for them. The ones which will eat anything get the powder on the food, but also the supplement in water because they all get water from the same bottle when I do a water change.