Getting off Pinks

[Selkielass]

All my snakes go nuts for fresh garden worms. Store worms are pale substitutes. All, including the Butlers relish rodents, whole or chopped, but they seem to me to be more prone to overeating and becoming fat. (Very rich food compared to fish amphibians worms and leeches, I suspect.)
Both my eastern and marcianus became overweight last fall on a predominantly rodent diet with occasional breaks of silversides and worms.

For those who do offer rodent as part of a mixed diet, how often or in what percentage do you offer rodents?
I am moving towards less than 50%, but I am not sure how far below I should go.

[EasternGirl]

I don't know...I feed a mixed diet...but the diet is one that has a basis of pinkies...they eat more pinks than anything else. I feel more comfortable with my snakes eating more pinkies that anything else...because of the problems associated with feeding too much fish. I feed them worms occasionally, but worms are not as easy to come by...so they eat more pinkies and fish. Summer is coming, so there will be worms in my backyard again, and they will get more worms during the warm months. If I had to feed my snakes only one thing though, I would feel safer feeding them pinkies all the time than fish all the time. As it stands now, I alternate...one feeding I do pinkies, the next feeding I do fish...so they pretty much get a 50/50 diet of pinkies and fish with the occasional worm feeding thrown in. In the summer...I will probably start alternating so it's pinkies one feed, fish the next, worms the next.

[BUSHSNAKE]

I'll be breeding my frogs once they're old enould. The tadopoles and morphed frogs will be what is getting fed.

cool...what kind are they

[kibakiba]

Pacific chorus frogs. Northwesterns and Snap (concinnus) go absolutely crazy for them... They're really common around here. You used to be able to find 30 frogs just in one bush.

[ConcinusMan]

im interested in breeding an amphibian to offer as food such as axolotles or reed frogs...any thoughts out there on that?

Yeah, I was just thinking about that. I collected eggs and now have a ton of squirming, thriving little chorus frog tadpoles which have grown tremendously since hatching and need nothing more than an occasional water change and a little flake fish food. Man, these tadpoles would be perfect baby garter food. In just a few months, I'll have little froglets. But alas, now that I have the tadpoles, I have no baby garters.

When I kept adult chorus frogs, they did breed but only produced perhaps 30 eggs, and the frogs are high maintenance. Wouldn't be cost effective or practical, but collecting the wild eggs and raising them, is. Good timing too. Tadpoles are full size about the time that baby garters are available for sale. (April, May)

If only there was a way to ship them alive as baby garter food. There are thousands of them in standing water outside my door, plus the ones I'm raising. I would imagine that the ones I hatched out indoors are free of parasites.

Personally, I wouldn't fuss if I had a garter that ate only pinks. That's fine really, but getting them on fish too, at least gives you other options.

[stevenrudge]

ok feeding pinks or rodents in a mixed varied diet is not a problem,the problem is what it leads to if the diet is based or a pure rodent diet,there is a tendency at lest in England within the pet trade to sell garters on a mouse based diet, while l admit that a small garter looks to be doing fine on a pinky diet it naturally lead to a exclusive mouse diet for the rest of its life,and that has to be wrong for many resigns to big to go into on this thred but the short version is-garters are designed to eat soft bodied animals,a mouse is not a soft bodied animal.Garters have a high metabolic rates-they digest there soft bodied food very quickly.A mouse diet takes longer to digest so your messing with the snakes natural metabolic and digestive rates.its mush easier just to defrost and feed a mouse than use fish so hobbiest are inclined to stick with the mice so this leads to the garters not having any variation in their diets.plus in Europe there is anecdotal evidence that a mouse diet shortens the life span of garter snakes, So for us as hobbiest wanting to take the best possible care of are pets why would we want to take the risks with are pets food just because its easier for us to feed mice?

[Invisible Snake]

I personally feed my garters pinkies and guppies because that is whats available in my area. they do sell amphibians in my area but they are expensive to buy as food for my garters. I plan on adding nightcrawlers to their diet when it gets colder in my area.

[BUSHSNAKE]

Pacific chorus frogs. Northwesterns and Snap (concinnus) go absolutely crazy for them... They're really common around here. You used to be able to find 30 frogs just in one bush.

i think chorus frogs might be perfect, let me know how the froglets do once they morph out...im curious big they will be

[snakehill]

I can't get mine to eat anything but nightcrawlers at this time. I have been trying to get them to eat pinkies. Now I read about getting them off pinkies! I am very confused!

[guidofatherof5]

Don't be confused. Personal preference is a big part of keeping them.