A note concerning pre-packaged frozen fish

[stevenrudge]

Over the years l've just about tried every fish going,the best diet l've come up with is this,l buy fresh Scottish rainbow trout(Greg will like that bit)then l cut up the whole fish from just behind the head making cutlets all the way down the fish,then cut the cutlets in half at the spine so each strip of fish contains bone skin and fins,then depending on the snakes l'm feeding l feed the strips or if needed l can cut them to whatever size l need,If l need to l then put the fish on a plate and freeze, so that l can just take the frozen fish strips as needed.
This is the controversial bit,l use socked fish pellets(where the protein is fish)very small pellets for neonate babys moving up to larger pellets as they grow,and for adult snakes l use a complete dog kibble,again well socked in fish water.
l started to do this with the problem of finding fish small enough for the neonates,with fish cut up not having enough nutritional value l found the vitamin and mineral content in some fish pellets very good for garters and water snakes.
l get very good growth rates and its a good adult breeding and maintainace diet.

[Natrix]

Hi! Steven, Are we talking the type of green fish pellets that you would use for Koi and other pond fish ?

[stevenrudge]

Hi! Steven, Are we talking the type of green fish pellets that you would use for Koi and other pond fish ?

l use the King British or Omega fish pellets,as long as the protein is from fish then their fine

[gregmonsta]

I followed this on the other forum. As far as finding the right size of fish, I think I've managed to crack things up here http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/husb...trout-fry.html . I'll be buying suitable sizes for my adult snakes at the end of the month and fish at all sizes are available to me from what the owner said.
The fish pellets are an interesting one. The fact that they are based on fish protein is a good thing. How long have you been using them?
The dog kibble is something I definitely would not consider. Much like catfood I feel it suffers from the bias towards being a dog specific blend. I had negative experience of catfood in the past and could envisage similar problems with dogfood.
I remember shops selling 'garter grub' bag in the day. It would be nice to find out how it was formulated.

[stevenrudge]

I followed this on the other forum. As far as finding the right size of fish, I think I've managed to crack things up here http://www.thamnophis.com/forum/husb...trout-fry.html . I'll be buying suitable sizes for my adult snakes at the end of the month and fish at all sizes are available to me from what the owner said.
The fish pellets are an interesting one. The fact that they are based on fish protein is a good thing. How long have you been using them?
The dog kibble is something I definitely would not consider. Much like catfood I feel it suffers from the bias towards being a dog specific blend. I had negative experience of catfood in the past and could envisage similar problems with dogfood.
I remember shops selling 'garter grub' bag in the day. It would be nice to find out how it was formulated.

l've used this for about 20 years,l only use dog kibble because l cannot find a fish pellet big enough,but l agree with the cat food,garter grub had minced up rodents and chicks in it

[gregmonsta]

I just remembered where I'd seen trout pellets recommended before - Jon Coote's care-book in the T-rex series from 1993 (I believe he was also behind garter grub).

[Invisible Snake]

Hey does anyone know why T-rex discontinued garter grub?

[stevenrudge]

I just remembered where I'd seen trout pellets recommended before - Jon Coote's care-book in the T-rex series from 1993 (I believe he was also behind garter grub).

yes he was with Luke Yomans,he then sold the wrights to T-rex,it was Jon and Luke who l bought my first San-Frans From-they where outstanding San- Fran's much bigger then what you see nowadays,l paid £500.quid back then about a £1000.00 in todays money

[d_virginiana]

That is interesting... I've never heard of the fish pellets before. I have easy access to lots of fresh whole food so I've never had to worry about my snakes not getting enough nutrition from what they're eating.

I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do for fish once I move my snakes this summer. We fed the older one almost nothing but fish for over 10 years before I found this forum and realized they could eat a lot of different things. He is in a mouse-eating phase right now, but he will randomly hunger-strike for fish, so I guess I've got to figure something out before I move I'm considering buying a large quantity of minnows from the local seller who we've bought fish from for the past twenty years and shrink-wrap/freezing them since I'm pretty sure they're safe. It'd just be for Houdini, as my younger one doesn't seem to care for fish and I would rather her have a primarily pinkie/worm diet.

[harpercat]

I completely agree with Marnie here. I will only buy fresh fish and would never feed my snakes anything I wouldn't happily eat myself. As a secondary precaution, my cat is always prepared to be the official food taster and he is VERY fussy! LOL