first shed...

[abcat1993]

Maybe we need to make a banana thread, to express our frustration about our posts, and post all the bananas we want. We'll have our own banana paradise

[Stefan-A]

You're the one who brought it up.

[KITKAT]

In the 70's, the Ohio state University Marching Band had a different mascot for each "rank" of band members. The sousaphone players were the BANANNAS!

[Snaky]

hi, i'm assuming the pharmacy B1 suppliment is for people, are they okay to use with snakes? because over here human vitamin powder would be a lot cheaper than "specialist" snake suppliments...

It's not vitamine B1 that you buy as tablets, added with some other things. It's really vitamine B1 powder pure, pharmacies use it sometimes to add in mixtures they make themselves on a prescription from the doctor.

I also use a vitamin powder for reptiles once in a while to add as supplement, because there's a lot more other vitamines/calcium/... in there. They can benefit from it if you add it once in a while, I think.

I don't know if the fact that reptiles are designed to conserve liquid and don't urinate as often as mammals would have any bearing on vitamin B1's passage rate, and hence it's toxicity.

Do you have any studies on that, I'd be interested in reading on the toxicity level with snakes of to much B1? I would still think that it's hard to reach toxic levels with vitamin B1, but if it's proven otherwise I'm interested of course.

But for those that worry about it, heating the fish to 80°C for some minutes (never done it myself, so don't know how many) does the trick of killing thiaminase. Still the fish don't contain B1, so I would still add a little supplement.

[Cazador]

Hi Hans,
I don't have any studies about toxic levels of B1 in reptiles. I was just wondering... thinking out loud.
Rick

[abcat1993]

Would a garter even take a cooked fish? (80 degrees C)

[Stefan-A]

It's not really cooking until it reaches 100 degrees C, but the consistency of the fish should start to change at around 50. Sliders will take once heated fish, but I can't say about snakes.

[nessy]

crazyhedgehog:

Oh and I give them the odd garden worm (what the americans on here call night crawlers, threw me at first, I thought it was some foriegn insect that they ate!) just make sure its the common garden thing and not the redder ones that you find under sacks or in composts as they are toxic to your snakes..

i'm never sure about garden worms, i used to chop them up and feed them to my slider when he was small, but there's soooo much muck in them, does that not matter for the snake's digestive system? i know what you mean about the red worms, i noticed that when my slider refused to eat them... (oh and yeah, about the nightcrawlers: me too )

i'm not too worried about mice at the moment cos she's still only small

i've also heard of people feeding slugs, but aparently they're pretty bad with parasite

Trout has NO thiamanese apparently, I buy it from Asda, chop into bite size bits and feed with mice, sometimes alternately, sometimes mixed..

trout has no thiaminase?! wow really, that's real helpful cos i've been looking for safe/common fish like that for ages!! i've got an ASDA right over the road! THANKS!!

[Stefan-A]

Doesn't seem to matter for the snake that the worms are full of muck. I hear one way to get rid of it, is to leave the worms in a can with moist paper towels for a few hours, but I've never tried it. I just wipe the worst off the surface.

Gave one of mine an Eisenia (the toxic kind) by accident once. It regurgitated it a couple of minutes later and then tried to eat it again, but I decided it was best to get rid of it alltogether. They look a lot like nightcrawlers, only smaller and their coloring is slightly banded.

We don't have any slugs big enough to get a garters attention. Or we might have one, Limax cinereoniger, but I think it might be toxic.

I've been looking for a fish that I could give to my snakes whole. Salmon would probably be perfect (although some say it's too fatty), if you could get your hands on salmon parr. You'd think that just feeding your snake muscle tissue could lead to some kind of deficiency.

[CrazyHedgehog]

I've been looking for a fish that I could give to my snakes whole. Salmon would probably be perfect (although some say it's too fatty), if you could get your hands on salmon parr. You'd think that just feeding your snake muscle tissue could lead to some kind of deficiency.

Yes I would prefer to give whole fish, but unable to get hold of any large quantities of a decent one...If you find a source in the uk, then please pass it on, as there are a few of us that would be interested...

I will leave bits of bone in the fish, as long as its not sticking out nastily, and because its mixed with pinkies, or mice, they still get a fair amount of bone content..