Rodent diet

[Snaky]

I try to give some variety with the feeding sessions. Most of the time the food consists of pinkies/fuzzies, catfood, smelt or another fish and earthworms. (With B1 or Ca or multivitamin addition)

Yes, I agree, amphibians can carry parasites, but wild snake populations can cope with this, even we humans carry them. At least with our captive specimens we can periodically treat for parasites.

This is not a good idea in my opinion. Treating your snakes for parasites every several months doesn't seem all that healthy at all. It's always stressful and you need to take good care of the dose's. I think it's better to provide alternatives, and you have enough possibilities to alternate.

[drache]

I guess I hadn't read that part about the periodic parasite treatments.
That seems very unappealing to me.
There is that story about the Chinese doctor who was asked to participate in an asthma study. He said the way to treat these patients was to stop inducing the asthma.
I would not give anything to my animals with a plan to treat them later for possible fallout.
But I do wish I could offer my snakes the occasional amphibian without worry. Since I can't, I don't.
I have no desire to raise feeder frogs, but I do often wish, someone would.

[GarterGuy]

Like a lot of people on the forum, I feed a diet of primarily rodents, but supplement with other prey items to add variety to the diet. I do wonder about the affects of a rodent diet on a group of snakes that does not specialize in rodent feeding.
I say specialize, because there are many examples of Thamnophis to do feed on rodents....as was stated before, T.e.vagrans often prey on rodents....I imagine this is due to the fact that they can be found far from what is considered "typical" Thamnophis haibtat where the amphibians and fish that so many others prey on can be found. There are also reports of insular populations of Maritime garters (T.s.pallidulus) that are the primary predators of rodents on those islands. I think that garters for the most part can be called generalized feeders that specialize in what ever prey item is most available for them in their habitat.
As far as garters being able to take on adult rodents, many other nonconstritors take on adult rodents...like racers. Now it's a big garter that's going to take on an adult mouse, since it's got to kill it by just biting it or smashing it into stuff.
I think the problem with possible impactions due to fur and stuff is due to the fact that we feed our snakes bigger mice then they could have possibley ever eaten in the wild. Personally, I don't feed any of my garter snakes mice that are much larger than twice the size of their head. I may have to feed more than one a feeding, but I think this is easier on them. So yeh, there's my two cents on the whole thing (that's a long paragraph for two cents! ).
Roy

[KITKAT]

When I feed rodents, I never exceed ten days old. That means that I may feed two pinkies rather than an older mouse, and when a snake needs to graduate to something quite larger, I use rat pinkies.

[drache]

rat pinkies! What a great idea. I'll try that.
I do have a kingsnake who will not take rats. Something about the smell?

[ssssnakeluvr]

I use rat pinkies a lot....I cut off the legs (they are frozen/thawed) andfeed them with fish to the smaller ones until they are big enough for pinkies. only the large adults eat adult mice. i do give fish also, i found a store that stocks rainbow trout year round so i stock up and freeze them after cutting into chunks.

[Thamnophis]

When my snakes are older and bigger I change also to ratpinkies.

Bottomline probably is that gartersnakes are opportunistic feeders that eat everything they can get a hold on.

[GarterGuy]

rat pinkies! What a great idea. I'll try that.
I do have a kingsnake who will not take rats. Something about the smell?

That wouldn't happen to be your PI king would it??? Mine won't take rats either!

[mikm]

Early on when I first acquired Garters, two different, very reputable breeders swore they had lost Garters after feeding them what they felt (afterwards) was too large a prey item (rodent). As such I have always erred on the side of caution and fed small fuzzies at the most. BTW my "Blue" Garter male will not take pinks, so much so that he does grab them from the bowl then spits them out. I put it back in with his fish, he removes it, lol ... Both of the girls however now readily eat the pinks as do my Red Spots. Actually all of the Garters I have owned converted to rodents, even the WC E. Black Neck babies I had converted from thawed leapord frog pieces to pink parts.

Good topic ...

[drache]

That wouldn't happen to be your PI king would it??? Mine won't take rats either!

Precisely that one. He recoils the moment he gets near enough to smell it.