• Responding to email notices you receive.
    **************************************************
    In short, DON'T! Email notices are to ONLY alert you of a reply to your private message or your ad on this site. Replying to the email just wastes your time as it goes NOWHERE, and probably pisses off the person you thought you replied to when they think you just ignored them. So instead of complaining to me about your messages not being replied to from this site via email, please READ that email notice that plainly states what you need to do in order to reply to who you are trying to converse with.

  • IMPORTANT! PLEASE READ!! About the Google Adsense ads being displayed

    =====================
    Posted 08/15/2025
    =====================


    Yeah, I know. They are a pain in the butt. But they pay the bills to keep my server running. Just a fact of life, I am afraid.

    Want to get rid of them? Simple. Just become a Contributor level member or above and they will be gone. -> Please click HERE."

    Is that too much for me to ask of you to keep this site running? Well, sorry about that. I too wish I could get everything for free. But alas.....

    =====================
    Addendum: 01/10/2026
    =====================


    Google Adsense ad revenue for December, 2025 was just $30 over the cost of the lease for the server running this site. So, in effect, the money providing the incentive for me to continue running this site is coming SOLELY from the paid memberships and sponsorships here. Which honestly ain't much....

Feeding chicken hearts to snakes

B

bigjej

New member
Joined
May 18, 2008
Messages
202
Reaction score
1
Points
0
Age
45
Location
Chicago IL
I bought some fresh chicken hearts from the local Asian market last week to feed to my lizards (tegu, BTS, etc) and decided to see any of my snakes would take it. I tried it with my kinsnakes, corn snake and sunbeam and much to my surprise they all took them. The feeding response was faster than what I often get with FT mice, even though these were not warmed. Can anyone see a problem with doing this from time to time ? I understand making it a staple would be a problem as its only muscle tissue and not the whole animal meat. But once in a while, like when I'm waiting for a shipment of rodents?
 
I am by no means a nutritional expert, but personally I wouldn't do it. Snakes always feed on whole prey in the wild, so this is very unnatural. Snakes can go quite a while without food, so should be able to go without while waiting for a shipment.
 
Chicken hearts are an excellent source of lean protein and can be safely added to any carnivore diet. That being said...no bones is no calcium so use sparingly.
 
I have regularly used chicken hearts as a muscle supplement for small snakes feeding on geckos, before they get large enough to take whole chicks (I am in a country where I cannot get clean feeder rodents).

I always trim off excess fat, and have never fed just hearts. It is easy to stuff them with calcium supplement powder if required - I used to do that about once a month.

I wouldn't recommend it as a lone diet, but it was useful to me.
 
Back
Top