This going to be long I have a feeling...
I have been following this thread for a couple of days now and really didn't want to get into it. I still don't to be honest, but I just can't stand aside while incompetent information is being flung around.
To me, this is purely a fad diet, only for snakes. While feeding odd and ends type of meat to corns or any other snake may have the ability to break the monotony of weekly feedings, and may ease your monthly bills for feeders, I do not think this should be a staple diet. Simply put.
Common sense dictates that cooked meat does not have the nutritional quality to maintain any animal for a long term period of time. Even the most carnivorous animals in the world have a "salad", whether by munching on grass or leaves or ingesting the stomach contents of their herbivorous prey.
There is a lot of nutrition to be garnered from the animal in total, not just by a few odds and ends and the occasional organ meat. As Hurley stated (more or less), liver is a sponge that collects everything the animal has eaten. Pollution, pesticides, and vitamins that can be hazardous to reptiles in excess quantities. The higher up the food chain you go, the more the liver accumulates these toxins. Which is one reason I hear bear hunters say "do not eat the livers", bears eat a ton of things and accumulate high levels of toxins in their liver that you could ingest. And for reasons such as that, I've really cut back on the amount of chicken livers I eat myself. I just don't trust my own food supply enough.
A few things you've said have really struck me as odd. First, it took you 2-3 pages to come right out with it and say exactly what you were feeding your snakes. Which I must say, I too though it sounded like a cheesy infomercial you see on late night tv. The way this whole thread has started has been the main reason for it's current state. Had you brought it up as a serious sounding discussion, info and input it might have gotten a little bit better reception here on the forum.
Secondly, I think you truly underestimate the value of grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The way you appear in text to those of us on a media like this, that makes 98% of the judgement in the first 5 mins. If I have to get close to my monitor and try to decypher your paragraphs, the more tedious and annoyed I get. Effort is 100% in my book. You either try to learn it, or you don't. I worked in a classroom as a volunteer for 2 years with mentally and physically challeneged elementary school students. And hands down most of the dyslexic students could spell better than you seem to be managing. Please don't hide behind a condition, overcome it.
And to Jimmie Johnson, having worked with disabled children for a number of years, I honestly thought Luv's comment was humorous. I'm blonde, and I still enjoy blonde jokes. I don't think for a moment he meant it, merely an attempt to lighten the mood of this already dismal thread. The moment you stop laughing is the moment you stop living. You know who told me that? A 7 year old Down Syndrome kid after one of his better days filled with laughter during a field trip. He died 3 years later.
Back to original reply:
Thirdly, I honestly think this is a quick-fix type of feeding strategy. I appreciate your willingness to work through hardship. But maturity ultimately means letting go of things you cannot maintain properly. I, myself, got sick of paying the exorbitant rates for feeder rodents and started up my own breeding stock. I've never looked back at mass produced and bad quality mice you buy in bulk. There's no law against raising your own feeders in NY, the last time I checked.
Several people have pointed out that they're skeptical of your feeding practices, and I would have to agree with them. Snakes in the wild have survived millions of years eating small
whole prey. Whether it be lizards, rodents, birds, eggs, etc. If they were meant to eat cut and cooked meats, then they would have adapted a way to gain the other essential nutrtition like humans do. We're omnivores out of necessity.
And when confronted with their skepticism, all you've seen to do is clam up and get overly defensive about your new fangled idea. That's the beauty of this forum in particular, we're all here to bounce ideas off of one another and try to get an idea of what might be a new element in corn snake husbandry. You're the first I've yet to see to come and give us a measly 2 years worth of "evidence" and expect us all to jump on the bandwagon. If you're truly serious about this, I for one would like at least 5-10 years worth of data to back up your statements. A control group, an experimental group, scientific data to prove it can maintain corns at a healthy quality of life for a long period of time. Not just "hey, want sum cheep food 4 yor snakes?".
People have asked pretty important questions, and all you can manage to say is "figure it out for yourself" kind of things. If this is an honest attempt to enlighten us on your new method of feeding snakes, then give concrete evidence on the steps you take on regurges, how much to feed, etc. Sure snakes are all different, but generally they all follow the same patterns when it comes to meals.
I myself am willing to try different sorts of whole prey items to keep their diet varied and maybe it helps with additional nutrition from one item or another. I currently raise mice and have just added in rats. I do plan on offering chicks and I have fed other rodents (hamsters, gerbils).
As far as cooked meat? Nope. I personally don't like adding in artificial vitamins and minerals. They don't contain the elements needed to properly synthesize them within the body most times. And then they're just flushed out when the animal goes to the bathroom. I don't take mutlivitamins myself, I figure if I eat a balanced diet with all of the essentials and then some, I'm pretty good. Raw meat might be a better source of nutrition. But then again you get into the argument that our food supply isn't nearly as clean as the feeder mice I raise in my own garage.
There are a lot of inconsistencies within your posts. Snakes are lactose intolerant? That's a new one to me. Maybe on cow milk. Cow milk contains a high amount of lactose, thats why most people have problems with it and other animals as well. In my animal fostering I've always been told by local vets to not give pasteurized, homogonized cow milk it makes baby animals sick. I'm sure mouse milk is low in lactose. And when snakes are eating mice with milk in their bellies, they're only capable of reasonably eating one at a time anyway. So there isn't enough milk there to worry about. Also, I'd be curious to know what is in the spines of gerbils that make them so toxic? I've raised them for feeders and never had an issue, nor have I ever heard of anything about this. Any insight on this one Hurley?
Also feeding your corn snakes fish? I don't think so. Fish and reptiles are close enough on the evolutionary tree that the same parasites can infect both of them. I don't want to give my corns some exotic fish parasite. I know from having to worm a parrot cichlid that medicating fish for internal parasites that trying to rid fish parasites is extremely difficult.
Also, I don't think a baby snake is going to go into a mouse nest and kill the mother then eat the babies. A mother mouse is not in the nest all of the time. She has to keep her high metabolism working and milk production up to make healthy babies. So she's not going to be in there all of the time. That just sounds like a silly city-fied thing to believe and say.
And to get to the rediculous side of this thread, I've read through this thread 8 times now and the majority of the so-called name calling has been by you. When someone confronts you on your posts, you start with the crude jabs.
As far as Drizzt80 goes, he has some very valid points. Having just recently graduated college I can say that the younger teachers with definitely less time and, "experience" as you put it, are more knowledgable than their counterparts who've been teaching for eons. That's the blessing of this day in age, the Age of Information. And calling him "narrow minded" is definitely uncalled for. He was 100% honest in what he had to say all without calling you one thing or another. The same for everyone else who have replied. To me, just now jumping into the fray after having watched for a couple of days, you just seem like "Pigpen" from the Peanuts cartoon. Only instead of dirt and dust you like to fluff up the trouble. It seems wherever you go there's a cloud of uncertainty.
A few things to sum it all up:
People will not take you seriously until you start acting seriously about it. Id est, providing concrete evidence from long term testing. Giving accurate feeding scales (food amount to size of snake ratio), amount and frequency of artificial suppliments, etc etc. That's what it all boils down to at this point, in my honest opinion; someone with an unprofessional manner trying to give professional advice.
I put this thread up to post to see if any wanted to try somthing new I didn't want to go into a debate over wether you belive it is healthy or not.
- Then what the hell are we here for? I want to
know its healthy before I feed it to my snakes as a staple diet. I believe everyone here agrees based on their posts all harping the same message.
People ask me all the time do you have any snakes that dont eat bugs or rodents and when I say no you have to see the face of a disapointed kid that cant have a pet snake because of its diet.
- Snakes are not cute little furry rodents. If you cannot handle the fact they eat rodents or afford the food, then you have no earthly purpose in owning a snake, or even a pet for that matter. Its irresponsible and careless.
HOw many years have you been breeding snakes? How many do you own ?
- Does it really matter? No. We all bring a fresh outlook to the table, whether we've been in the hobby for 5 years or 55. Just because you have 22 years of experience doesn't mean diddly to me at this point. Why? Because you come across as someone who is out to glorify their own image for some unknown reason. If you want to know, I've only been in the hobby for 3 years. And most of the people on here can tell you that I am an honest person who cares about their snakes and other pets. Am I ignorant about aspects of corn snake husbandry? Damn right, about some things. We all are, even you.
Enough said, I think. Vinny, I think you've gotten the jyst of everyone's posts by now. Until its done in a better fashion (mature, professional, honest), I don't think you're going to have much interest in trying to bowl over the rest of us.
And if anyone has issues with anything I have had to say on this post or for my entire history here, please feel free to PM about it. I don't like public flame wars, they're petty, useless, and a vast waste of space.
just so you all know, jimmy and i have made nice.... my comment was in bad taste, and i want to appologise to anyone who was offended.
