An adult would gain no nutrition from a pink.
You would be better off advertising them for sale.

 

Good to know, thank you 🙂
I had kind of wondered if that was the case but couldn't really find an answer so figured I'd ask!

 

Maybe cull them and freeze them and sell them frozen. I suspect they'll be better quality than the mass produced ones.

 

Do you think a low price would put people off, make them think there's something wrong with them? I have no real use for them really and I'd like them to have some "use", I wouldn't be looking to make any profit particularly.

My mice are certainly well cared for and the culled pinkies just a byproduct of raising show mice. So I would think/hope they'd be of fairly decent quality.

 

The pinkie would feed baby corns but not adults. With regard to the low price putting people off well it might but once you explain what goes into feeding the adults then people should buy them. People buy them from pet shops without ever thinking to ask what the adults were fed. Only way to know is to test the water just before your litters are due and see if get any takers.

 

Thanks for the advice!

Yeah, I'll have to find out where's good/ok to post it and see if there's any takers. Or just post on this forum.

Thanks for all the help guys. Nice to not be laughed at for asking maybe silly questions, lol.

 

See, l think there's no reason why you couldn't occasionally feed the pinkies to an adult snake, as long as it's not at every meal.

I have fed pinks and fuzzies to my adult corns every now and then - if l had any left if one of my hatchlings refused to feed - as a tiny snack, or with their adult mouse.

It's not that they can't get any nutrition from them, they just aren't as complete meal as an adult mouse ( low in calcium for example ), so if you fed solely on pinkies, the snake would be deficient in some nutrients. Plus, you'd have to feed a lot of pinks per meal to make the25-30 g an adult corn would need.

 

I also disagree with your first few responses. You're talking about this as an occasional thing, so I see no reason whatsoever why you shouldn't feed the pinkies to your own snake.

I'd say try to feed several at a time so it is something more akin to an actual meal. The nest raid idea mentioned above is a good one and an absolutely plausible thing that would happen in the wild.

A snake doesn't need the exact same nutritional profile at every single meal, any more than we do.

 

I do this occasionally just to vary things up. A handful of pinks or fluffs (obviously just one will not be enough for the average adult snake) put inside a fake nest, or a deli tub or Pringles container with an access hole cut in, is a great form of enrichment. It should not be done more than once in a blue moon though, but there is no reason whatsoever you cannot do it now and then.

Then again I am a big advocate of varying diet as much as possible, so mice and rats of all sizes, multimammate mice, day old chicks, quail chicks, quail eggs (or hen's eggs for larger rat snakes), gerbils, hamsters, baby rabbits.... whatever you can find that is small enough to be eaten.

 

I do this occasionally just to vary things up. A handful of pinks or fluffs (obviously just one will not be enough for the average adult snake) put inside a fake nest, or a deli tub or Pringles container with an access hole cut in, is a great form of enrichment. It should not be done more than once in a blue moon though, but there is no reason whatsoever you cannot do it now and then.



Then again I am a big advocate of varying diet as much as possible, so mice and rats of all sizes, multimammate mice, day old chicks, quail chicks, quail eggs (or hen's eggs for larger rat snakes), gerbils, hamsters, baby rabbits.... whatever you can find that is small enough to be eaten.

Just bought a bunch of pinkies and gunna try this out today. First feed after a shed. Will be weighing the normal mice I feed and match that in weight with pinkies

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Lets face it guys, snakes are opportunists. If they came across a nest in the wild they will take the mother and the young regardless of size (this has been shown on many a documentary).

I have, on occasion given a fluff to an adult royal rather than wast it because the hatchling royal refused it, and that did it no harm, although it must have been more hungry than normal the way it took it's rat at the next feed

Common sense would suggest that 16 2g pinkies won't provide the same nutrition value as a 32g mouse will.

 

Thanks!


Yeah, I'd imagined they wouldn't be as good/nutritionous as an adult mouse. Hence why I asked if it'd be alright only occasionally.



Although it's been a little conflicting I've received some really good advice.
Thanks again everyone!

 

Honestly, l wouldn't worry about the nutrition side, if you are interested, there are some tables on internet listing and comparing the nutritional value of mice, rats and chicks of various sizes - but l think varying the feeds is more interesting and could even be more beneficial for the snakes.

Plus, you probably feed your own mice better than commercial breeders and being freshly killed, their nutritional value will still be better than defrost. And l imagine the snake will go bonkers for them as they will smell so good .

What l have tried for enrichment was to drag the defrosted mouse along to create a scent trail ( and the snake followed it with great interest ) then hide the mouse inside a kitchen roll tube - he found it pretty fast and was really excited!

 

Honestly, l wouldn't worry about the nutrition side, if you are interested, there are some tables on internet listing and comparing the nutritional value of mice, rats and chicks of various sizes - but l think varying the feeds is more interesting and could even be more beneficial for the snakes.

Plus, you probably feed your own mice better than commercial breeders and being freshly killed, their nutritional value will still be better than defrost. And l imagine the snake will go bonkers for them as they will smell so good

.

What l have tried for enrichment was to drag the defrosted mouse along to create a scent trail ( and the snake followed it with great interest

) then hide the mouse inside a kitchen roll tube - he found it pretty fast and was really excited!

Thanks for all the great info and tips!
I will have to look into nutrition tables for sure, it sounds very interesting!

I think once I get a snake I will go ahead and try feeding pinkies on occasion, just not too often. All the information everyone has given has been fantastic and so helpful. I really do love the idea of creating a fake nest of pinkies and giving that to the snake. And I love the mouse in a kitchen roll tube idea so much!

Although animals in captivity don't need everything to be "natural", I like to try to offer as much natural enrichment as I can. And anything that's mentally stimulating is great. I like to give my Spiny mice mealworms as a treat and they go mad for them, their tiny predator instincts taking over, lol! Watching animals behave "naturally" is fascinating to me.

My mice's diet certainly costs me enough to make me really hope it's better, lol!
But as much as it sounds conceited, I do have healthy well cared for mice.

Forgot to add- when you get the snake, just make sure you wash your hands really well after handling or cleaning your mice before attending to your snake.

Snakes have phenomenal sense of smell, and can confuse your hand for a meal if it smells like one

- especially king snakes.

This is a good point! Yeah, definitely clean hands before handling snakey, I've been bit by a snake once and while it wasn't the most painful experience of my life, it's not one I'm eager to repeat.
I have a near-blind pet rat and have learnt my lesson the hard way of making sure my hands don't smell of something tasty....

 

Forgot to add- when you get the snake, just make sure you wash your hands really well after handling or cleaning your mice before attending to your snake.

Snakes have phenomenal sense of smell, and can confuse your hand for a meal if it smells like one - especially king snakes.