Chicken bits as food?

[-MARWOLAETH-]

Fair enough. I suppose birds are lower in cholesterol and fats than farm raised mammals.

In my local market they sell game birds and wild rabbit.Could they be an option?

[ConcinusMan]

I don't see why not. Even better option is if you can find someone selling fertile quail eggs and/or chicks. Those are great. It's not that hard to incubate eggs and freeze/ use chicks as snake food. Some people can't handle doing that even if they have no problem buying the eggs to eat.

Plenty of farms right here locally sell fertile quail eggs and chicks seasonally. I've had no problem at all getting some of my bigger concinnus' to accept f/t chicks of appropriate size.

[jaleely]

So you guys usually do a mixed plate, when feeding the kids, right?
How do you make sure they all eat?
How do you GET them all to eat? lol
My wanderings only eat slugs, and my red-sideds only eat fish!
I can't get either to eat anything else!
I should try mixing the plates and smells, more, eh?

[guidofatherof5]

Hungry snakes are less picky. Skip a couple meals then offer something different.

[ConcinusMan]

I watch them closely so they don't fight. As they eat enough to get a good bulge individually, I pick 'em up and put them in another container tall enough that they can't leap out. As I do this, the numbers of them in the feeding tank, obviously goes down. This often gets less competitive snakes to come out and eat too. You know, the ones that sit back and wait for the competition to settle down.

If I'm left with a few snakes that didn't / wont eat, I place those in another container. Then I put all the ones that ate, back in their enclosure. I try again the next day or two, to get the non eaters feed. It's not that hard to make sure everyone eats. Sometimes, they just dont all eat. There's always a few that don't eat much or at all and over time you'll be able to tell which ones those are, just by looking at them.

I use ventilated plastic tubs with tight fitting lids for babies, and a very large "seedling heat mat" to warm the tubs by placing the ends of the tubs on the pad. I use rectangular tubs and I can heat several with that large pad. I always have multiple containers and always have some empty and ready for this feeding method. Basically you just pull them out as they eat, and keep them separate until everyone gets fed. Works well for me.

[MCwyo]

I picked up a package of all natural hearts/gizzards today. The package only had two little hearts and about a pound of gizzards

I cut up the two hearts and it ended up being enough to feed all of my garters, as they are all still smalish All of them went CRAZY for it. Only one snake did not eat, probably because she is in blue phase right now.

I know the gizzards will be a pain to prepare, but are they ok for the snakes to eat? I'll go through the hassel gladly if I can use them for the snakes. If not, my dog is going to be getting a lot of special treats lol. I don't know what else I'd use a pound of gizzards for... I expected there to be more hearts than gizzards, but seriously, two hearts?! Oh well

[d_virginiana]

I imagine gizzards might be more trouble to prepare for snakes than it's worth I thought about it, but as I only have three snakes, there's really no point in me worrying about it...
Right now I'm just frustrated, since apparently no one sells hearts/livers around here, but the Food Lion butchers won't let us take any heart/liver scraps because they don't prepare them for human consumption *grumble grumble*

[ConcinusMan]

oh, and to answer earlier questions...

Basically, a gizzard is a specialized digestive organ. Similar to a stomach, but not quite.



Gizzard - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[thamneil]

To anyone who has tried hearts, did the snakes take them without scenting?

[guidofatherof5]

Turkey hearts, no scenting required for my snakes.