Mice vs Chicks?

[Zoe]

My IJ won't take rats, but she will readily accept both mice and chicks. Which is better for her? Should I simply alternate between the two?

Thanks!
Zoe

[Andy_G]

Alternate or keep on mice only for sure. Chicks are not as nutritious.Watch for salmonella with feeding chicks.

[Edwin]

I would stick to mice as well. Chicks are not nutritionally balanced as mice, and they give your snake runny, stinky poo.

[Burmies]

There really is no problem with switching. Just as long as it eats good.

Burmies

[Hamster of Borg]

I'd like to know who made up the myth of poultry always giving them runny/stinky poo. If you drastically switch any animal's diet it is going to have a period of rough digestion until its system adapts, but a snake on a constant diet of chicks will eventually have quite normal craps, except that downy feathers seem to clump up to be less reconizable than fur does. :P

Ham

[vanderkm]

The value of chicks would depend to some extent on their age - if they are very young (newly hatched culls from hatcheries) they will not have eaten and so will not have gut content to contribute to their nutritional value. When very young (under 2 weeks) they have a very low proportion of bone to cartilage, so are deficient in mineral content overall compared with adult mice. They do have a higher fluid content (immature body tissue is higher in water) so would contribute more to hydration if that is an issue. Chickens would have to be over 4-6 weeks of age (2-3 lbs or so) to have pretty good bone percentage, but would likely be too large for a carpet python. Overall, I believe a significant proportion of an adult snake's diet should be made up of adult prey, but up to 20% young prey animals is not likley a problem.

If chicks have been frozen before use, much of the potential salmonella load is reduced. More and more commercial poultry is produced under Salmonella control programs, so if the source is culls from commercial flocks, Salmonella is not as much of an issue as if chickens are from small, free range flocks. Chicks that are over a week of age will also have a large percentage of their weight made up of crop and gut content, so the diet the birds were on is something you want to consider before using them for feed. Ensure chickens used for prey have been on a ration that is free of antibiotics (hormones are not used in poultry feed in Canada so that is not an issue).

We feed chicks intermittantly to boas and carpets as well as larger colubrids. They provide some variety and the snakes like them, but we keep it under about 10% of the total ration.

mary v.