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 #1716787


Gottee guy
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 Rabbits

i have a large bull snake and i was wondering... could i feed it and occasional rabbit(dead) and take the bb’s out of the rabbit first or would the bb’s spoil the food?(the pellets are lead and steel).
04/26/08  10:03am

 #1719951


Matt Chandler
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   Message To: Gottee guy   In reference to Message Id: 1716787


 Rabbits

yes you should take them out, or risk lead poisoning or they stay in the snake
04/29/08  08:59am

 #1720854


Aliceinwl
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   Message To: Matt Chandler   In reference to Message Id: 1719951


 Rabbits

I wouldn’t feed anything shot with lead. There is always the possibility of it splintering or leaving residue. Use steel only, and remove them.
04/30/08  02:15am

 #1721799


JackAsp
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   Message To: Aliceinwl   In reference to Message Id: 1720854


 Rabbits

How long are you freezing the rabbits?
05/01/08  12:23am

 #1722729


Gottee guy
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1721799


 Rabbits

well nvm, i was in a hurry when i shot it so i put it on the grass in the yard and when i came back...hawk prints...grr.... but i would have just let him eaten it nonfrozen or i could have froze/thawed it to get rid of possible parasites.
05/01/08  10:04pm

 #1723358


JackAsp
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   Message To: Gottee guy   In reference to Message Id: 1722729


 Rabbits

I always gave squirrels at least a month in the freezer before I gave them to my snake. When I was a kid I had a fox snake that I fed literally whatever the cat dragged in, usually with only a few days of freezing, but really I only did that for one summer before we moved and the cat was stuck in an apartment all day. Plus, I never tested her, so she may have had all kinds of things building up in her. I only kept her for a couple of years, so I can’t decisively say that I know the story ended well.
05/02/08  04:37pm

 #1723969


Gottee guy
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1723358


 Rabbits

i also found a new and abundant food source (as an occasional treat)-bird nests. i let him wander in one in a shrub yesterday and he came out eating 3 out of 4 chicks!



05/03/08  10:59am

 #1774684


Doug2
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   Message To: Gottee guy   In reference to Message Id: 1723969


 Rabbits

Don’t all of these wild animals have tons of parasites?
06/26/08  05:44pm

 #1776118


Gottee guy
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   Message To: Doug2   In reference to Message Id: 1774684


 Rabbits

first,my snake is also wild caught. and second i would’ve frozen the rabbit before to kill bacteria.
06/27/08  11:28pm

 #1777302


JackAsp
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   Message To: Gottee guy   In reference to Message Id: 1776118


 Rabbits

That’s not what you said in your bird nest post, though.

It doesn’t matter that he’s wildcaught. Wildcaught snakes do not have magical anti-parasite resistance. They stay reasonably clean by moving constantly. When a wild snake excretes parasites, they stay excreted, because the snake is twenty feet away in a few minutes. In captivity, depending on what type of parasite we’re talking about, it can easily stick to them and ride back into the drinking water, re-enter by crawling up the cloaca, or even bore right back in though the skin.

In the wild, they ingest worms, ditch them, ingest more, ditch those, over and over and over again. In a cage, they eat them, eat more, eat more, eat more, and clear them out much more slowly than they would in nature due to the contant re-exposure. So it ends up getting health-threatening. Unless you are in actuality Batman, and have Alfred the butler standing by to clean their cage five seconds after each poop.

The reason we use captive-bred prey items isn’t that we’re a bunch of insane uber-nannies who run around in the forest forcing a Band-aid onto every animal we see because we don’t think they’re capable of surviving out there under natural condidtions. It’s that cause and effect works differently in a small cage than it does outside. If you want your snake to eat wild birds, hey, no problem. Let it go. If you want to keep it in a cage, then you’ve taken away the only way it has to control parasites. That makes preventing them your job, because Nature isn’t going to climb into that cage and help you.



06/29/08  02:59am

 #1778242


Gottee guy
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   Message To: JackAsp   In reference to Message Id: 1777302


 Rabbits

i never thought of that parasite cycle thing, but i let him go yesterday anyway.

since hatchling birds don’t move around in their nest alot for weeks,how do they stay healthy?do they have stomach acids that snakes dont?

that post that he was wild caught didnt really mean anything.
06/30/08  12:19am

 #1778258


JackAsp
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   Message To: Gottee guy   In reference to Message Id: 1778242


 Rabbits

I don’t know; that’s a good question. I assume that the mother bird cleans the nest a lot, so nothing builds up to too high a level, but that’s just me guesing. Pretty much everything outside has light parasite levels. Keeping them light inside is a lot harder, so we just shoot for keeping them nonexistant. And even THAT fails sometimes, but the less often the better.
06/30/08  12:42am


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