Getting off Pinks

[stevenrudge]

Hurray!its just taken me six months,Yeah SIX MONTHS,to get some Black Eastern Garters off a pure pinky diet,back onto a balanced fish based diet.
l honestly thought l was going to fail,
When l bought them just as l was leaving the seller informed me that he had (transfured) them over to a pinky diet,had l known this before l would not have bought them.
Back at base l put normal food in--nothing touched
Put pinkies in ate the lot
Tried pinkies with fish,only ate the pinks
l kept trying the pinky fish combo--would only eat the pinks
Back in March l thought sod-it they can go hungry
l've left them alone with no food for about four weeks feeding the rest of my garters in the same rack around them as normal
Put in fish only today and bingo they ate all the fish
sorted

[Invisible Snake]

Congratulations. I mostly feed my garters pinkies and live guppies. Hey may I ask why you wanted to get them off pinkies?

[katach]

Some keepers prefer to feed what they would normally eat in the wild. Pinkies are not a normal food for them. Pinkies are still very balanced in nutrition, but as long as you understand the varied diet of what they would eat in the wild they still get the nutrition they need. Hope that helps.

[BUSHSNAKE]

a true varied diet would include rodents, thamnophis are very oportunistic...if they are available in their habitat then they are eating them...what really confuses me is when i find Thamnophis in sand prairies,must be taking down rodents and possibly even lizards

[chris-uk]

Good work. I may be looking at a similar process, the radix I got from John seems to prefer pinkies and refuses fish (so far).

Right now I'd rather she was eating anything as she's needs the nutrition to help her skin heal, so I won't try hard to gets her to take fish until I'm happy that she's healed. I was saying to the wife today after Adora took pinkies without hesitation, but refused the salmon, that I don't know how I'd scent salmon to smell of pinky. Maybe I'll try the starve strategy in a couple of months. Things is I know John fed his snakes on fish with just the odd pinky, so I'm surprised she's refusing the fish.

It's good to know that you can get them back onto a mixed diet after they've been on a solid pinky diet.

[katach]

We mix it up here too. Worms, fish, slugs, and pinkies.

[BUSHSNAKE]

im interested in breeding an amphibian to offer as food such as axolotles or reed frogs...any thoughts out there on that?

[Didymus20X6]

As long as you're breeding them yourself, there shouldn't be a whole lot of concern about parasites. And other than parasites, I can't think of any reason not to feed garters amphibians. Amphibians are a good part of their diet in the wild, and mine absolutely love them.

[kibakiba]

I'll be breeding my frogs once they're old enould. The tadopoles and morphed frogs will be what is getting fed.

[d_virginiana]

Wow, it's usually the other way around; trying to get garters who are used to fish and worms to eat pinkies. We mix the food items up too, but the pinkies were definitely the hardest to get them to eat for us, especially with my older one.

im interested in breeding an amphibian to offer as food such as axolotles or reed frogs...any thoughts out there on that?

I'd just say to make sure you're breeding an amphibian that your snakes could encounter in the wild (like Chantel's). My garter regurgitated food (the only time in his life) when I gave him a pinky that I had previously offered my pacman frog. I think even non-poisonous amphibians can be toxic to snakes that aren't designed to eat them just because a lot of them produce some sort of low-grade toxin in their skin.