Thiaminase

[Mandi0284]

I went to petsmart today looking for frozen silversides. I found them and one of the workers asked me what i was feeding. I told her i had a young garter snake who was feeding on mostly fish.....which seem to be his prefered food. he will eat worms, but with a lot of coaxing and scenting.

Anyway she asked me if i wanted goldfish. i told her i had been advised to stay away from goldfish as feeders for garters. she told me that their fish were parasite and chemical free.

i was wondering what is Thiaminase?
how does it affect the fish and thus make them toxic to our serpent companions?

[Steveo]

It's an enzyme that breaks down thiamine, which is otherwise known at vitamin B1. I'm not sure what function it has in fish biology, but it causes a B1 deficiency in snakes. In humans, a B1 deficiency is the cause of the disease known as beriberi.

[Invisible Snake]

In snakes I believe thiamanese causes a neurological disorder, causing them to have convultions etc. and eventually death.

[katach]

Thiaminase also had nothing to do with the breeding or condition of the fish. It is naturally occurring in the fish.

[guidofatherof5]

Thiaminase also had nothing to do with the breeding or condition of the fish. It is naturally occurring in the fish.

Agreed. You also can not compensate for thiaminase (feed more B1).
It is a horrible death for snakes to suffer.

[Mandi0284]

Good to know. I dont like goldfish anyway lol.

She told me that the fish in the store were Thiaminase free and that they breed out stuff like that to make them safe. I know that that is not the case. I understand wanting to make sure the other customers feel that the fish are safe, but i guess not a lot of people know much about garter snakes.

[thamneil]

I think there was probably a more suitable thread to put this in but I wasn't able to dig it up. I have a question about feeding thiaminase containing fish to your snakes.


Ive been researching Nerodia lately, and many of the photos and articles I come across portray the snakes eating bullheads. These catfish are a confirmed thiaminase carrier. Do you think that as part of a varied diet, thiaminase containing fish are ok? Or is it possible that Nerodia is more tolerant to the enzyme?

[ConcinusMan]

Agreed. You also can not compensate for thiaminase (feed more B1).

It's a slippery slope. You cannot possibly know how much thiaminase is present in the snake, and therefore, you cannot know how much B1 to give the snake to counteract it. It would be like balancing a "teeter-totter" on the head of a pin. On the one side is thiaminase. On the other is B1. A little too much on either side is bad and the balance is lost, the snake dies.

Another problem is, you can feed thiaminase to a garter for years and the damage to the nervous system can be cumulative. In other words, by the time you see any symptoms, it might already be too late to do anything about it.

And that sort of addresses Neil's question. Yes, some snakes might be more or less vulnerable to disease from the enzyme, and whether disease appears or not, can be related to how much is ingested, the peak amount in the snake, the ratio of B1 vs thiaminase ingested, at what stage of life the imbalance occurs, and the cumulative effects of that balance over the lifetime of the snake.

Have a healthy snake that has been ingesting it for several years? So what? Doesn't mean it's not harmful. It's not too late to cut that enzyme out of the diet. I don't know of any snake that's going to drop dead because it ate goldfish or rosies for a week or even a few months. Best just to avoid thiaminase altogether if at all possible. The potential for the disease is there, and that's enough to warrant avoiding it.

I don't know of any case where eating bacon or smoking a few cigarettes in your lifetime is going to make a person automatically drop dead overnight either, but consume enough of it, for long enough, and you'll surely increase your risk of dying young of heart disease. Get it?

It's just plain bad for them. Anything can be poison. You just have to consume enough of it.

[infernalis]

It's not poison.

In other words, if your snakes need food, and all you can get is some Rosy reds, then go ahead.

It's long term, continual feeding of thiaminase rich fish that will lead to damage one day down the road.

Wild snakes (and other reptiles) don't reference books or post on forums prior to eating, so if a small bullhead or catfish showed up, it will get ate.

[ConcinusMan]

Oops. Sorry. I added that last sentence after you posted, Wayne.

Think of it like smoking, if you will. It's poison. I can smoke an entire case of cigarettes and not die. Doesn't mean it isn't poison. Just depends on how much you take, and how long you take it.

Now, I'd rather my snakes not smoke. (or eat thiaminase) It's not allowed in my home even when/if it's me doing the smoking.

It's not poison. It's long term, continual feeding of thiaminase rich fish that will lead to damage one day down the road.

Yes, agreed. Bacon isn't poison either, but eat a pound a day for 20 years and watch what happens.