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Would it be alright...

I'm going to have to say no. There are a few reasons, mostly ethical, although disease could be a problem too. Then again I have like a half dozen different bird feeders, so who am I to say.

I did see where a researcher taught wild watersnakes to take minnows from his hand so that he could keep track of them in a study. I don't remember the study completely, just that he hand fed watersnakes. weird, huh. :shrug01:
 
I had a northern water snake that would take blue gill from my hand and I kept her for about 2 years . When I brought her home after she chomped on my hand she was in her cage and my mom walked by and she had 45 babies 3 were still borns. I kept her for a long time and she never had a problem feeding . That was before my mom allowed to buy snakes though I dont think I would put a wild caught snake in the same room with my snakes I purchased .
 
Well there is a black rat snake that lives in my shed, it is looking pretty badly malnourished now, so I was just wondering if I could give it a mouse. I have no intensions of catching it, though it is very docile, I am guessing from a lack of energy.
 
From time out of mind people have helped wild animals they thought were in need.

If you want to try to help this guy out, go for it. I can't see any harm coming from it. If he's already sick enough to be lethargic, he may not survive anyway. If he does survive, then he'll have to get over what's gotten him down.

Hopefully it is merely an injury or an unlucky stretch of missing prey items and not some illness that, if he recovers, he will then spread to other snakes in the area.

The coin always has two sides.
 
Do you think if it is ill there is a good chance it won't eat and if it does do you think the one mouse would give it enough energy to spread whatever it has?
 
Otter_23 said:
Do you think if it is ill there is a good chance it won't eat and if it does do you think the one mouse would give it enough energy to spread whatever it has?
Click to expand...
One mouse could lend energy enough to eat more mouses which could enable a detrimental disease to be spread.

I don't really think that's going to happen, but it is possible.

I would catch the snake, feed it, see what happens, make sure it's healthy before releasing it or just find a home for it or, if it died, make it fertilizer.
 
There are additional issues... disease and parasite transmission from captive raised mice to the local wild population...

And the concept of a species regulating its own population based on limitations. If he isn't getting enough food then there either isn't enough food locally- and by keeping him half-fed you'd be keeping a predator alive where there is no prey... or he's for whatever reason unable to obtain it on his own, meaning he's weak. Be it an illness he was succesptible to, an injury of some kind or just an ectotherm coming off a tough winter; the breeding population depends on only successful animals being successful. Feeding a dud creates a population of duds.
 
Chris, if you've got an extra 10 gallon tank you could probably keep it in the shed. That's were it lives anyway. If I was going to keep it alive I would take out of the wild population.
 
i can't think of a way you could offer it food. being wild, its probably not going to take pre-killed. perhaps set up a bird feeder near the shed he lives in. that will attrack birds and mice...then nature will take its course.
 
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