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Chicks as Food

W

WAS1

New member
I know this has probably been brought up before. But does anyone feed their corns on day old chicks?
I`ve just bought some, and the pet shop owner argued that there is no nutritional value in them at all for snakes.
Is this true? as i know people who have fed snakes nothing else for years.
Are they a good source food or not?
 
I feed my 6 year old Amel on a day old chick every two weeks, she is fully grown, in excellent health and has eaten chicks all her life with no problems. I dont imagine any reason to change.
 
They will work fine, but I would be wary of offering them unless you have a very reliable, long term supplier. Your corn(s) could develop a taste for them to the exclusion of mice or rats.
 
I have no experience feeding chicks to corns, but years ago I tried my Burmese on chickens. BIG MISTAKE! Those were the runniest, smelliest stools I have ever encountered.
 
Similar to Starwarsdad my snakes tend to get runny stool when using chicks and as far as I know they are not high in nutritional value and I would not reommend using them on a regular basis, I tend to us them just for a bit of variety, once a month or so. Every snake is different, some of mine would never touch a chick but try it out and see how it goes, just remember to de- beak them first. Good luck
 
Sorry Matt, but I disagree about the De-Beaking, snakes regularly eat small birds in the wild and there is no de-beaking needed there! In my opinion...
 
Now why on earth would you need to de-beak a frozen/thawed day old chick? I hope to goodness its a frozen/thawed and not a live chick they're de-beaking. Such a cruel practice that's still around.

If a snake can digest mouse teeth, I think a beak would be easy. They're not as sharp as they look, and in day old chicks are still quite soft and pliable, I can't imagine any sort of damage occuring from one to be honest.

Chicks aren't that bad for nutritional value, probably not as good as an adult mouse. However I would think that the smelly, runny poos would be a detriment to their extensive use. I haven't ever gotten my adults to be interested in them, or I would offer them occasionally as a break from the all-rodent diet that they've been on.

From looking at a comparison of their nutritional content from RodentPro's website available here: Nutritional Value of Whole Vertebrate Prey the difference between a day old chick and an adult mouse really doesn't seem that much different.

Adult Mouse - Nutritional Values

Protein: 55.8%
Fat: 23.6%
Ash (mineral content): 11.8%
Gross Energy Obtained: 5.25% kcal/g


Day-Old Chick - Nutritional Values

Protein: 64.9%
Fat: 22.4%
Ash (mineral content): 6.4%
Gross Energy Obtained: 5.80 kcal/g

So based on that, it looks like chicks have more protein which would cause the runnier and smellier poos. Close to the same amount of fat, and less mineral content because the chick's bones hadn't hardened yet when compared to a fully formed adult mouse.

There has been some speculation that feeding chicks in the diet of corn snakes may enhance the labial (throat area) yellowing of older individuals. Chickens have a pretty high carotene content and with the feed nowadays that enhances that for a more yellow yolk-composition in the eggs, I can imagine that it would color a cornsnake up pretty good. I hope to test out the theory at some point, if I can ever manage to convince my corns that chicks are tasty. :shrugs:
 
Sorry should have said f/t, not a fan of live feeding anything, (execpt for a live pinkie for very stubern hatchling feeders, but even then i don't like it).
 
I feed my large adults day-old (f/t) chicks occasionally. They may get them once every 3 or 4 meals. They do love them, that's for sure. As far as chicks go for stools, they do have runnier stools, but the difference hasn't been that horrendous for me from regular stools. The beaks on day-old-chicks are relatively flexible and I don't debeak them. I've never seen beaks come out in the stools (although seeing the feet from the ankles down come through happens more often than not, so I do sometimes cut the feet off.)

As for my corns refusing other meals after chicks...I haven't had that problem. Most of my adults would probably eat a sneaker if it were offered, though.
 
I`ve just fed my Bairds Rat Snake her 1st chick. She loved it. Straight down.
I`ll try my Jungle Corn tommorrow. If chicks are a reasonable source of nutrition, they`re well worth trying. They`re a fair size meal, and are less than a 1/4 the cost of mice, some places sell 100 for £10.
Gotta be worth a try. The more money you save on food the more you have for new snakes.....
 
Taceas,
I would never feed a snake any form of live food for starters and I would agree that they should not have any trouble with the beak but the reason I de-beak them is for safety, as I once saw the beak of chick nearly punturing a snakes throat. I admit I believed the snake was far to small to be offered a chick (Not my snake) but it was that experience that made me air on the side of caution when using chicks. I was new to snakes at the time and now know that this was a rare thing but it's something I'd rather not see again or to happen to anybody else. Thanks for that nutritional info by the way.
 
the reason I de-beak them is for safety, as I once saw the beak of chick nearly punturing a snakes throat
Click to expand...

I didn't realise that was the reason, and yes some adult corns are 2 small for chicks (small females no bigger 3ft for example). Anything around 4ft long or bigger should handle a full chick fine though, but thats just mho.
 
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