Why You Should Never Feed A Snake Live Food

Why You Should Never Feed A Snake Live Food
By Gary Ruplinger

When it comes to feeding your snake, you need to stick to pre-killed food.

There are a lot of reasons that people prefer to give their snakes live food. One of the most common is they feel that a snake in its natural habitat would eat live food so in captivity they should be given live food as well. I used to agree with them. However, it only took one incident for me to change my mind.

I was feeding my Brazilian rainbow boa like I usually did. I removed the driftwood from her cage but left the plants inside because she preferred to hide in them before she attacked. I put a medium sized rat in the cage as usual. As usual, she attacked quickly. However, she made a fatal error. She managed to get herself bit, and that caused her to puncture her lung. She died a few minutes later.

The main reason you need to stick to pre-killed food is for safety reasons. Yes, 99% of the time your snake will take care of the live food quickly and efficiently. However, it only takes one incident to kill your snake. Feeding your snake live food is simply an unnecessary risk.

There are other benefits to giving your snake pre-killed food. It’s more readily available in pet stores. The pre-killed animals are killed humanely and didn’t suffer. That’s not likely to be the case when putting live prey in with your snake.

If you’re worried about your snake not accepting pre-killed food, you’re likely unnecessarily worrying. Almost every snake will accept pre-killed food. It may take a few tries to get your snake accustomed to pre-killed food if it had been on a live prey diet previously, but almost every snake can be taught to eat pre-killed food.

The process of feeding your snake pre-killed food is really quite simple:

1) Thaw out your rodent in warm water for 30 minutes. Snakes won’t eat it if it’s frozen, so make sure it’s warm.
2) Dry it off.
3) Put the rodent in the cage.
4) If the snake appears uninterested, grab a pair of tongs and move the rodent around to make it appear alive.

Snakes make great pets and can be companions for years. Why risk unnecessary injury or even death by feeding your snake live prey?

Gary Ruplinger is the owner of BoaTips.com - a comprehensive snake resource site. If you're interested in learning more about pet snakes then be sure to stop by his website. You'll find all the basics to caring for a pet snake, a great snake newsletter, and specific advice on how to care for 20 of the most popular pet snakes. If you have any questions during your visit, make sure you visit the snake forum and participate in discussions about this great yet misunderstood pet.

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Feeding Crickets

Feeding Crickets
By Devin Price

When feeding crickets to your reptiles or other pets there are a few things you nee to do to ensure the best nutritional value. Remember you are what you eat. There is a huge advantage to keeping the crickets at home or breeding your own allowing you to "gut load" them before you feed them to your pet. Simply put, gut loading is feeling your feeder insects healthy food before you offer them to your reptiles. The large commercial breeders that supply most pet stores feed their crickets the cheapest food they can find. While these foods will keep the crickets alive they do little if anything for your pet reptiles.

There are products available on the market that are especially made to gut load crickets. For the most part these products are good quality and get the job done. Keep in mind that these products are not cheap though. I have been gut loading my crickets without theses products for years. I provide a small dish full of dry dog or cat food. I sprinkle a bit of reptile vitamins and calcium on this. I also give me crickets vegetables like mustard, and collard greens, kale, squash and peels from fruits like papaya, apples, and pears. You can also offer fish flakes (their favorite).

The key is to provide your pet reptiles the best most balanced diet possible. The bigger wider the variety of foods you feed your crickets you will accomplish this task without a lot of work. Remember you don't have to break the bank to gut load your crickets. Simply feed them your leftover scraps from the fruit and vegetables that your family eat.

I will provide some links on my site to products that I have used over the years with much success. As well as where you can find inexpensive crickets.

Learn more about raising and breeding crickets

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Madagascan Hissing Cockroach Care Sheet

Madagascan Hissing Cockroach Care Sheet

As many as 200 adult roaches may be kept in a ten gallon aquarium. Use cardboard egg cartons to provide hiding places and multiple living levels.

A heat stripe or pad should be kept under one end of the tank. Temperature range on the heated end of the tank should be between 80-90 degrees F. At the other end of the tank place an inverted water bottle.

Foods that may be fed are baby chicken starter mash, grains, high protein baby cereal, fish flakes, etc.

A screen top is not enough to keep the roaches from escaping the tank as they can climb glass. Take a paint brush and a jar of Vaseline and paint the top two inches of the inside of the tank on all four sides with Vaseline. The roaches will not go past the Vaseline.

The Madagascan roaches have a life span of two to three years. They also produce live young. Each female is capable of bearing twenty to thirty babies at one time.

The roaches do not bite. The hissing sound they make is actually air that is being pushed in and out of their sides. Males hiss loudly when fighting but hiss softly when mating.

In sexing these insects the male has horns on the top of his head. The female is lacking these horns and the top of her head is smooth.

The Madagascan offspring are a perfect feeder insect for all reptiles and amphibians. The Madagascan roach can be bred with ease for a steady supply of food for any insect eating reptile or amphibian. The cost of maintaining a colony is minimal, which makes breeding them as a food source very cost effective.

Fruit Fly Care Sheet

Fruit Fly Care Sheet

Fruit flies are a perfect feeder insect for smaller reptiles or hatchlings such as baby chameleons, frogs, Paroedura Pictus, Bearded Dragons, etc.
Fly cultures can be kept at room temperature (around 72 degrees F).You should avoid freezing temperatures and temperatures above 100 degrees F.

After the initial culture is set up new flies begin to emerge in about two weeks. A new fruit fly culture will continue to produce fruit flies for about a month. Females will lay up to two-hundred eggs in the medium mixture. The eggs will hatch after two days and the larvae will feed on the yeast for seven to twenty days. The larvae will begin to climb up the sides of the vessel to dryer areas to pupate and transform into adult flies in a couple of days. The new flies are ready to mate within two days and have a life expectancy of a little more than two weeks.

Start a new culture when the original culture is two to three weeks old and before any flies are removed for any other purposes. For a continuous supply of fruit flies, always set up a new culture before taking flies from a culture. Cultures should not be kept longer than six weeks.

Fruit flies can be raised on a variety of fermenting plant materials but using prepared medium is the easiest. This can be ordered from most people who breed the fruit flies or from a biological supplier.

Equal amount of prepared medium and water are mixed together and a few grains of dry viable yeast are added. Six to ten grains per culture is sufficient of the dry yeast. Take care not to use more yeast than the specified amount as this can cause sterilization of the flies or even death.

You may also want to make your own medium. Use the following recipe for making your own medium:

1 cup of water
1 tablespoon cornmeal
1 teaspoon agar (available at health food stores)
1 tablespoon molasses
1/8 teaspoon calcium proprionate (available at chemical suppliers)
1 package baking yeast

Except for the yeast mix all ingredients above and boil. Pour the mixture into culture vessels. Cover the vessels and place in the refrigerator until you are ready for them.

When you are ready to use the cultures sprinkle six to ten grains of yeast into the culture. Your home prepared medium is now ready for the fruit flies.

After preparing the medium add a dozen or more fruit flies to the vessel. This should remain undisturbed for about ten days. After ten days you may start another culture with the flies from this vessel or feed them off.

Transparent vials or bottles of glass or plastic can be used as a culture vessels. Vessels should be clean but they do not need to be sterilized when the medium is properly prepared.

Plastic foam or nonabsorbent cotton can be used as plugs for the vials. You may also use pieces of fabric and rubberbands for covering the tops of the vessels.

Wax Worms

Rearing Wax Worms

William F. Lyon

Common Name : Greater Wax Moth

Scientific Name : Galleria mellonella (Linnaeus


Wax worms sometimes are raised for fish bait or for life cycle observation studies in high schools, colleges and private laboratories. They are very destructive pests of honeycombs, especially when stored in dark, warm, poorly-ventilated places and outdoors in weak honey bee colonies. Wax worms are excellent fish bait and can be easily supplied the year around.

Kinds of Wax Worms
Greater wax worm moths are gray or brown, about 3/4 inch long with a wingspread of about 1-1/2 inches. Eggs are white and tiny. Larvae are milky white or light tan and, when disturbed, crawl rapidly backward almost as easily as forward. Larvae spin silken threads as they eat, turning from light tan to dark gray or brown on maturing. Next, they spin their white silk cocoons and enter the pupa stage.


Wax Worm

Obtaining Wax Worms
Wax worms can be obtained from bait companies, biological supply houses and often local beekeepers. In nature, within weak honey bee hives, larvae tunnel into honeycombs, leaving a mass of webs, debris and damaged frames.

Cages
Use glass or metal containers such as wide-mouth glass jars, plastic crispers, large lard cans or honey cans. Larvae will chew through wood and soft plastic. Use 20 mesh wire-screens for lids or covers.

Cage Preparation
Cultures are self-contained, developing from eggs to adults in the same environment. Place about 1,000 eggs in a gallon jar with a screened lid under a temperature of about 86 deg F (30 deg C). Temperature and food should be kept at optimal levels for best production. A continuous cycle of larvae can be obtained by allowing female moths to lay eggs.

When larvae begin spinning webs at the top of the jar, remove 30 to 35 and put them in a rectangular plastic box. They will pupate and emerge as adults and then lay eggs.

The eggs generally will be on the edge of the lid or the rim of the box and can be collected by placing a razor blade gently under one side and lifting. Eggs should come off easily and can be dropped into the jar. If the eggs were laid too recently, they will be messy and not lift off. In that case, wait one more day. It takes about six to seven weeks to complete the life cycle from egg to adult at 30 deg C (86 deg F).

Don't be too concerned about the fungi that develop in the boxes--you can still use the eggs as long as they do not have fungi on them. At several times of the year (usually spring and fall), the colonies are stressed by bacteria. This usually passes without creating a problem. Simply dispose of the affected jars as soon as possible.

Jars should be autoclaved, the larvae and associated garbage discarded, and the jars washed and sterilized before reuse. After collecting eggs, put plastic boxes into the freezer for at least 24 hours and then clean for reuse.

Biology
These insects are hardy, odorless and easy to rear. The greater wax moth goes through four stages: egg, larva, pupa and adult. Most people collect larvae from infested honeycombs or obtain them from a biological supply house to start cultures. The life cycle from egg to adult is about six to seven weeks at temperatures of 86°F and a relative humidity of 75 to 85 percent. Larvae pass through seven growth stages (instars) during feeding, with most growth in the last two stages. Mature larvae spin a cocoon and pass into the pupa stage, from which the adult moth later emerges.

Feeding
Larvae in nature feed on pollen, honey and beeswax in honeybee combs. In cultures, granular dog meal is effective. Mix seven parts granular dog meal with one part water and then add two parts honey. Mix and allow to stand one day before using. Granules should be soft and not sticky. Once the culture has been established, no daily maintenance is required. Another formula consists of one box Gerber's Mixed Cereal, 100 ml honey and 100 ml glycerine. Mix honey and glycerine in a container and pour into cereal. Mix with a spoon until all cereal is moist.

Other Factors
Mature larvae, before pupation, crawl into a crevice or hollow space, spinning a cocoon. Furnish the culture with two wooden boards held apart about 1/4 inch by driving nails through one board. Larvae will crawl into this space and can be collected daily. After counting they can be allowed to crawl into rolls of corrugated cardboard strips for holding. Next, place into a cool area to reduce further developments. At temperatures near 60°F, larvae will not pupate for two to three months. However, a refrigerator is too cold.