Feathery regurgitation anyone?

Anyone out there feeding birds to snakes?

I feed week-old chicks to my Fiji boas (Candoia bibroni bibroni), and have just witnessed one of them regurgitating a pellet of feathers and tiny bones. I have always found these pellets but had presumed they were deposited (ahem) from the other end. I've only just woken up to the fact that they are regurgitated and not faeces.

I know not many of you feed your snakes with birds, but does anyone have any experience with this? My snakes are healthy and have been doing this for years, and as far as I know they all do it, it's just that I saw it actually happening for the first time this week.

Pics below are three of my snakes eating their chicks, and one of a regurgitated feather pellet. These guys think they are owls!

Any experiences or comments welcome.

That's really neat!
I've never even heard about this before,
I just feed my snakes the usual old gourmet rodent and well, I'm sure you know where thats deposited from lol.
Thanks for sharing!


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Beautiful owlish boas btw! ^_^


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Thanks - these Fiji Boas are mostly arboreal, and birds are definitely part of their normal diet in the wild.

Apparently many boas like birds, but rodents have more meat on them and so will grow your snake faster. We don't have pet stores here that stock rodents, so I get the male chicks from the chicken farms when they hatch, (they only want the laying females) rear them for a week, and off we go.

I have heard that many boa owners avoid giving their snakes birds because they like them so much it's hard to get them back onto mice etc. I've heard chicks described as "snake crack", and mine do seem pretty eager for their fixes!

xD snake crack.
Well, I'd sure take chicken over a rat!
Lol
Cool thread, love learning new things :3


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I've had these snakes over 7 years and only just found this regurgitation thing out - so there are ALWAYS new things to learn!

Definitely!


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Very interesting! Thanks for sharing this, I had no idea they would do that. I've never fed my boas birds, mostly for lack of availability and the reason I always heard not to do it was because they leave really stinky nasty poops. Anyways, it reminds me of the egg eating snakes, they regurgitate the shells after swallowing the eggs. Neat stuff!

Originally Posted by AbsoluteApril

the reason I always heard not to do it was because they leave really stinky nasty poops.

'Tis true that if you use day old chicks the poop is VILE - they are mostly still egg yolk I guess

If you feed the chicks up for a week it's much better, but I also supplement with adult chicken wing portions to add a bit more solid muscle and skin to the mix, and so now the poop seems equivalent to what you'd get with rats or mice.

What a lovely topic this is.....

Helen, do they regurge the bigger bones as well?

I got a python that had been fed whole chickens, the feathers came out with the feces.

The smell was so horrible, that I have been very reluctant to feed chicken to any of my boas.