I have just set up my faunarium for my hatchling arriving tomorrow and I recieved a general guide to keeping king snakes, (which was nice of the shop as I didn't pay for it!) on this sheet in the feeding section it mentioned that if mice and rats are hard to come by or your not happy with feeding them rodents you can use an artificial food made of minced meat and food suppliments??!!

Now......when my house mate read this she was all for it rather than the rodent idea! so I have to find out about it as it was hard enough convincing her in the first place to let me get a snake! (i have been winging for about 6months and she finally caved in! )

So I was wandering if there was anyone out there that knows or heard fot his before? I was under the assumption that rodents were better as it provides all the snake needs.....even the fur is good for them!

So I was wandering what you guys think on the matter! Im all for rodents but I need some good arghument points to convince her again! lol

p.s sorry about the essay!

[quote] So I was wandering if there was anyone out there that knows or heard fot his before?[quote]

Meant to be heard of this before? still half asleep!

Yes, I have heard of that before. Not personally, but I know a few people have fed their corns and kings something called a snake steak sausage. The company that makes them is T-Rex.

P.S. I don't know how healthy they are for the snake though.

Yeah I really doubt it'll get what it needs...I mean I doubt these guys are eating "minced meat" in the wild...what kind of meat is it? I would stick to mice if I were you.

Stick to mice and rats. That's all. That's what's good for the snake.

I never saw these "rat sausages" before but unless they put minced bone as well as minced meat, then it probably is too low in calcium and will hurt your snake in the long run, especially baby snakes. THey may be fortified with calcium but while I don't know for sure, I would presume that a little bit of calcium powder mixed in the minced meat will not be sufficient. I would suggest you feed real rodents.

By the way, what is your relationship with your flat mate? I don't see how she can control what you feed your snake. I know living together you have to make compromises but it would be really sad for this compromise to be of a pet's health, just because someone is scared of mice for "some reason".

My girlfriend of 5 years is also extremely afraid of mice and rats. So I don't show her the mice, I compromise by putting the live mice away in a hidden place (unused bathroom). The frozen rodents obviously in the freezer. But no I will not compromise by feeding my snakes chicken mcnuggets (LOL!) or something because there is no reason for this fear and you don't sacrifice the health of the animal. That is not to say you don't take your housemate, partner etc. feelings into consideration, but you should try to seek a compromise that doesn't harm the animals' health and if that is not possible, then I guess just don't keep the animal because no matter how cool they are, they shouldn't have to suffer.

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LOL! What you are referring to are "Snake Sausages" from T-Rex. These look like little link sausages but are composed of ground up rodents! Whole rodents. They would be perfectly acceptable as food. If your snake will accept them as food. Some do, some don't. Nobody around here carrys them. The problem being that it is more expensive to use the sausages than to feed regular rodents.

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Merlin,
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Snake Sausage indeed. Hmm. I jokingly asked Marsha if I couldn't just feed hot dogs to our soon-to-be cornsnake, but I never thought such a thing existed! I can see a real potential for housemate problems with Snake Sausage, though... What if an unsuspecting/unobservant housemate were to cook up some dinner with "that sausage that was in the freezer"? {shiver} She'll never accidentally put a whole frozen mouse in the spaghetti, though.

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Amy

like the new avatar amy

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Cheers Guys! yeah it was the t-rex snake steak sausages that I was asking about not just meat that we eat minced like in spaghetti bolognese!! lol

My partner is not afraid of rodents in fact quite the opposite! we used to keep two rats that she loved! its the humain factor that she doesn't like! having frozen ones in the freezer and all! And thats why I asked if it was ok to feed snakes these as I do not wanna jeopardise its health in the slightest!

I am all for feeding whole, real rodents it was just asking for her benefit! but as its better for them I will feed them whole mice instead of sausages! although the hot dog idea would be quite interesting!

Thanks guys

Actually I knew someone that had a similar situation occur,...
but not by accident.
They had a roommate that was notorious for eating the other's food. Having had their fill of it they left a saucer of the snake sausages in the fridge,... and waited!
After the sausages disappeared they nonchalantly asked "What happened to the snake food?"
He never touched their food again!

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Merlin,
What's Life Without A Little Magic!