Feeding toads to snakes

[Snake lover 3-25]

yeah........ that's mainly why i don't feed toads anymore......... bc they won't eat ANYTHING else after i feed them one!!!!!!! but you can always just use them to sent then release them!!!!!

[jeanette]

im an amphibian fan i just couldnt use any as feeders......

[Lumpy]

My Eastern doesn't have any problems with worms. She's a glut.

Lump

[jeanette]

My Eastern doesn't have any problems with worms. She's a glut.

Lump

thats great my female loves them too she will eat so many of them in one go and then looks silly with her massive stomache.

[Lumpy]

I fed her two on Wednesday and one yesterday. I don't know what her success rate was out in the garden, so for the short term, if she wants them, I'm letting her get her fill without trying to over do it.

Lump

[el lobo]

how do you know how many worms to give them? until their bellies swell? haha. It is easier for me to judge a good sized meal with something mouse or toad sized. I am also a fan of amphibians, but I am a bigger fan of the food chain

[Lumpy]

I've just kinda "eyeballed" it in a way. I feed her a day after I caught her, and not knowing when her last meal was, and the fact that she might still be stressed, I wasn't sure she'd eat all. But it took just a few seconds for her to gobble down the first nightcrawler, so I figured she was really hungry and offered her a second. That took a few minutes before she became excited and ate it, so I called it good.

I offered one to her yesterday, and she snapped that up, but I knew she had 2 the day before, so I didn't push it. I knew she wasn't going to starve at this point.

Lump

[Steven@HumboldtHerps]

My understanding is that not all species of garters are immune to the toxins of either toads or newts. T. sirtalis and its ssp. are well known for having subpopulations that feed almost exclusively on toads or newts. I have also however heard story of a possible paralysis of a T. s. concinnus ( a sirtalis not immune?). I am not positive, but I believe newts are more toxic. Might be a good idea to investigate this further. You don't want your snake to go stiff on you! Sorry, that didn't sound right.....

Steve

[Snake lover 3-25]

yeah.... i dont feed them just bc of the chance that something will happen and that it's hard to get them off of them....

[infernalis]

Here is an excerpt from a web site I was just looking at...

Any thoughts???

The diet of this reptile consists of frogs, toads, and their tadpoles. Lacking the enormous adrenals needed to deal with toad toxins, these are eaten only sparingly. The adrenal glands possessed by garter snakes are considered intermediate in size, making them large enough to handle an occasional toad, but not large enough to permit a steady diet of them without causing serious systemic injury.


After reading about many cases of snakes passing from a steady diet of toads (ask Sid) I thought that this would make for some good discussion material.