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Feeding a corn snake chicken breasts??

Temari

Temari

I love Pythons
My friend feeds her corn snake chicken breasts and she keeps telling me it's better than mice.
I don't like the idea of it but, i would like to know if it's a good thing to do that or it my hurt my snakes?? :shrugs:
 
Temari said:
My friend feeds her corn snake chicken breasts and she keeps telling me it's better than mice.
Click to expand...
Yeah, it's better.

It's better for her, not the snake.

My first (among many) concerns is less calcium, presuming she's not including the bones.....especially for breeding females.

I'll stick with rodents, and the occasional chick.

regards,
jazz
 
Snakes natrually prey on small rodents in the wild. The occasional whole small bird as well if they can. A few more problems in addition to lack of calcium would be the lack of other nutrients (the nutrients that the prey eats goes to the snake too) and you lose the roughage of the fur as well. I try to stick to what's natural as close as possible and chicken breast from the store isn't anywhere close to natural. It's possible but not healthy - ever seen "Super Size Me"? Kinda like that but for snakes.

~Katie
 
Temari said:
My friend feeds her corn snake chicken breasts and she keeps telling me it's better than mice.
I don't like the idea of it but, i would like to know if it's a good thing to do that or it my hurt my snakes?? :shrugs:
Click to expand...

It's probably fine as long as you season the chicken with garlic and thyme and serve it with a nice chardonnay and lemon sauce.
 
Bad. MUCH higher chance of passing along Salmonella to the snake, which means there is a worse chance of her (or someone else) getting it from the snake. This isn't usually a big deal unless you have kids running around or mind a week of runny, white chalk-colored, poop and stomach cramps. To each their own.

.....and she is slowly starving her snake to death. Mice are good meals because they are whole prey items. Same for chicks (but they make the snake's poo smell worse.) Chicken breasts might be OK as a dietary supplement (minus the above concern), but NOT as a constant meal. ...just like if all YOU ate were chicken breasts for a long time......

KJ
 
oh wow. Keep us updated as to when her snakes die (assuming she is feeding only chicken breasts and nothing else). I'm morbidly courious as to how long a snake can last on that...
 
Isn't there a someone on this forum who feeds chicken. I don't remember the name, but I believe this person had some snakes for sale. The snakes were nice but my concern was how one would get them from chicken to mice. :shrugs: susan
 
susang said:
Isn't there a someone on this forum who feeds chicken. I don't remember the name, but I believe this person had some snakes for sale. The snakes were nice but my concern was how one would get them from chicken to mice. :shrugs: susan
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Rub a mousewith a thawed chicken breast? LOL.

Off topic (a little), but I knew a guy at LSU-Baton Rougeyearsago that did some work on Eastern Mudsnakes. They pretty much only eat Amphiuma (LARGE salamanders), so feeding them was a hassle. He had a few in the lab, and he kept on fresh amphiuma in the freezer. He got most of them to eat boneless, skinless, chicken breasts by scenting them with the amphiuma. I thought that was a VERY good idea. He claimed he could do that for a year (less than 2years) before he saw them start to physiologically tank. Still, it kept them alive and healthy enough(for awhile) for him to use them in hisproject. I suspect he wasn't sprinkling the breasts with vitamins/minerals, and the snakes might have lasted a little longer if he did. (BTW, all of them were WC adults.) I also think they'd havelasted a LONG time if he would have sprinkled with vitamins/minerals AND fed them a couple of amphiuma per year to supplement the more common chicken breasts. I can't prove either of those guesses, though.....

Of course, they may have survived such a short period for reasons other than diet! I suspect they were pretty stressed being in a lab situation..... I have thought about trying to keep on this way (supplementing with vitamins/minerals and occasional amphiuma if necessary), but never grabbed that bull by thehorns yet.

KJ
 
Well, actaully i feel bad about her snake, I'll try talking to her about it or maybe she can give me her snake SO I could take care of it instead...... :rolleyes:
 
Sure, I feed whole f/t chicks at least several times per year, sometimes more. Depends on availability.

And back in the '70s when we had a traveling reptile exhibit, I fed chicken necks, hearts, and gizzards when we couldn't find whole food in some cities. It worked great as a stopgap measure when nothing else was available. The chicken parts gave them calories, protein, some fat, etc. But we only used the parts when we couldn't find whole food. Luckily, in most cities we could find whole rodents or chicks.

The only reason that chicken breasts are great food for people is because we also eat veggies, fruit, grain, etc (and a lot worse stuff, lol!), so we are not existing solely on chicken muscle meat. If we tried to eat nothing but chicken breasts over a long time, I am sure it would cause a lot of problems for us or most any other animal.
 
sargeoif said:
Wow, so they will eat parts of a chicken? I always thought that it was either whole or nothing.
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Heck, I've seen cal-kings eat hotdogs...without scenting....lol.
 
MANY snakes will eat chicken parts. Usually, any snake that would eat birds will eat chicken parts. During our travels, we fed chicken parts to corns, rats, tree boas, other boas and pythons of various species, kings, vipers and cobras of several species - very few refused, if they were already good feeders on rodents or birds. They go more by scent than anything, so if it smells like food, they often will eat it.
 
I been doing it for years. Don't use breast too little fat contant. I use necks, whole legs, and hearts, gizzards, livers. I also use turkey from time to time. I use a combo of mice and chopped up chicken and inerts. You got to smash the bones in the thigh and legs. I use the back of a cleaver to smash up the bones into small peaces. Remove any sharp bones large bones and cartilage or I chop the cartilage up very well into tiny pices. then I put it inot boiling water. it I also boil the inerts. Once the water starts water to boil again I cook for 15 min. with cover on the pot.
 
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