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are you still feeding your snake mice & rats ???

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Vinman said:
the jeird found in africa that the ball python eats is not the same species as the gerbil. The gerbil that is in the pet trade is from mongolia in aisa.Like I said before. My vet couldent find any info that gerbils are toxic to snakes. He said that he will look deeper into it to see if he could find that if you feed a diet of only gerbils to a snake for long time, will there be any toixc bulid up.
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I am not sure but I belive that the gerbo is what most balls eat in africa not the jeird but I may be wrong.
 
jeird is the family that the gerbil comes from. Ball pythons eats an african jeird and other rodents in the wild. The gerboa is a type of jeird from what I been told. I will be calling the BX zoo too find out more. It may be spelled jard instead of jeird.
 
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Hey vinman did you you check about the jeirid? I checked with the local zoo here which is the Henry Doorly Zoo (or how ever you spell it) here in Omaha And they said the gerbil and the gerbo are what the balls mainly eat in the wild based on research and from the locals that skin the balls and pull out gerbils in the process. I trust the zoo here because it has knowlagable people on staff.
 
It's true that balls eat gerbils in Africa, but Vinman is right about the gerbils in the pet trade being Mongolian natives. Too confuse things further, they are actually jirds, and known as the Mongolian jird (Meriones unguiculatus). Jird refers to a gerbil that belongs to the genus Meriones, with the exception of a couple of oddballs by themselves in the own genera.

According to my 28 lb. Encyclopedia-O-Mammals, gerbils are in a sub-family of Muridae known as Gerbillinae. There are 14 genera and 95 recognized species. Most of the African species are not members of Meriones. A lot of the gerbils in South Africa are insectivores apparently.

This is probably way more than you guys ever wanted to know about gerbils/jirds. The book doesn't say anything about toxicity, but that's not really the focus either.
 
thank you

Sisuitl thanks for the info I knew that I was spelling Jird wrong . THis is just the info what I wanted to hear.I know that the gerbil in the pet trade and the gerbil that ball python feeds upon are differnt a species I am sick and tired of people on this board douthing everthing I say I know I can't be right all the time but god damm ! I used to be a volunteer at the Bronx Zoo reptile house, I do conservation with the NYC parks dept.as a vollunteer doing the reintroduction of native herps which I started doing it on my own before I got involved with the parks dept. Also the many years of I been breeding herps guess this doesn't acount for anything.

Reptile addict you are using the name gerbil .this is a broard term,just like the term rat snake, It could mean any one of the many species of snakes that fall under the term rat snake. IF you look in ball python manual it will tell you ( Wild ball pythons are almost exclusively rodent eaters, feeding on several species of native African rodents, including various rats, gerbils, and gerboas.) I never heard of a Gerbo I heard of a Gerboa and had one for a short time as a pet. I not trying to be mean .But the truth is how creditable is your zoo when they dont know that the gerbils in Africa are a differnt species than the one that is in the pet trade and call a gerboa a gerbo ? :shrugs: Did you ask them if the gerbil is a jird , DId they tell you that balls dont eat Jirds , do they know that gerbil is a jird.They didn't even tell you that they eat other rodents. Do you know that a ball python in the wild will eat a bird. I have had wild balls that would not eat any of the rodents I offerd. One of them took a live small quail. so what does this tell you? Not all zoos are wealth of infomation . I'm not saying your zoo is bad but from the info you provided, It doesn't sound good. Rember some zoos are privet owned and not associated with the organization ( I cant remember the name of the org.) That crditable zoos belong too. Maybe you didn't ask the right questions or their knowalge is limited, like my spelling. Next time you are going to correct somebody get your facts staright.I'm not being nasty just being staright to the point. LOL vinman
 
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I got the baby 4 way het. to eat 3 small peaces of chicken for the seconed time soon I will try sented pinks with chicken broth soon .
 
Vinman said:
Rember some zoos are privet owned and not associated with the organization ( I cant remember the name of the org.) That crditable zoos belong too. Maybe you didn't ask the right questions or their knowalge is limited, like my spelling. Next time you are going to correct somebody get your facts staright.I'm not being nasty just being staright to the point. LOL vinman
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First of all if you look in the link I provided it specifically says that balls eat gerbils and other rodents in the wild and so does the "Ball python Manual". The zoo specifically says that the locals in africa skin wild balls for hides and pull out "gerbils". The henery dorly zoo is very knowlagable and has jebo on display and said on the cage that "The Jerbo are closy related to there native counterparts the gerbil" I know that the Zoo is bigger than most and has a building specially for reptiles and then has many on display through out the zoo. They specifically have a display for a huge female ball. maybe you should get your facts straight before saying the same to me BUDDY!!!!!!
 
you are a little different.... i wanna know but i have a feeling your not gonna tell, so unfortunatley for the rest of the world we are never gonna know the greatest secret in snake feeding, ohh well geuss we'll just have to keep feeding rats/mice
 
never mind you did tell... didnt know there was 16 frickin pages, geuss you really did stir something up.... still was a bit wierd though dontcha think. anyways im new here. so good luck with your gerbils
 
Reptile Addict, we know they eat gerbils. The point being made is that the pet store gerbils are not the same species as the ones ball pythons eat in the wild. They aren't even in the same genus.

It's a little like saying siberian tigers eat deer in the wild. Well, do they eat mule deer, moose, elk, fallow deer, red deer, rusa, muntjac, reindeer, caribou, or chittal? Or maybe none of the above. Like the deer family, the gerbil family is huge, and Mongolian gerbils (technically Mongolian Jirds) are not what ball pythons eat in the wild.

If you guys keept at this I will post all the known species of gerbil/jird, their geographical range, all 70 some of them. Muahahahahah! I've got it sitting right in front of me and have nothing better to do. Don't make me whoop it out! :)

Personally, I think the whole gerbil debate is getting a bit ridiculous, as you both are essentially saying the same thing to each other. Sorry if I've repeated points or anything, it's been 3 days since I slept last. :crazy02:
 
SisuItl Thank you agin I thought this was setteled, the point was made I went back to the subject that I started the post with.I'm out of food and have to get some Sm. fuzzy & Lg. crawles nex week, I'm broke this week. I just feed a bunch of o4 juvie chicken strips from a drum stick. They all ate it with no fuss. I wonder since the 04 took to this right away maby it has something to with the fact that the adults eat chicken. because I never had so many animals eat cooked chicken right off the bat for the first time. I have tried this before with juvie's and did not have thease results,their parents were feeding on mice . I think this has something to do with it.
 
That's really interesting. I wonder if that's why some offspring from wild caught parents insist on eating lizards right away.
 
I would like to know, as for weather or not i'll try it, depends on what it is. As for what you feed your snakes, thats entirly down to you. :crazy02:
 
Vinman said:
So far so good like everthing else in the hobby somebody had to try something new. Think of the first person to use plastic boxes or grapefriut seed extract .IF I get any bad results I will post them
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considering grapefruit seed extract has been proven to not have any antimicrobial properties (it is the toxic chemicals they add to them that do), I wonder what we will find out about this feeding method in the future.
 
HEY D80, It's your fault this has thread has been resurrected from the grave!! I think there is a reason this post died in 05!!
 
medusacoils said:
HEY D80, It's your fault this has thread has been resurrected from the grave!! I think there is a reason this post died in 05!!
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No, it's this guys fault:
nrfitchett4 said:
considering grapefruit seed extract has been proven to not have any antimicrobial properties (it is the toxic chemicals they add to them that do), I wonder what we will find out about this feeding method in the future.
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for choosing to post in this thread almost 4 years later. Get the pitchforks and rope. :eek1:

D80
 
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