DEATH BY THE DOZENS. ACTUALLY ... THOUSANDS !!

In the life of this blog, I have written several postings on my annual attendance at the National Reptile Breeders Expo in Florida each August. I have often highlighted the vast quantities of snakes, lizards & turtles featured each year at the Expo by companies & individuals selling the results of their captive propagation efforts.  Still, there is much more to see, buy & appreciate at the show each year.

The Expo features many dealers selling foods designed for feeding & raising the reptiles so many of us are drawn to the Expo to see & buy.  With my main interest being turtles & tortoises, I have been pleased through the years at the introduction of many prepared diets dedicated strictly for both turtles & tortoises.  In my personal collection, probably more than 75% of the food I provide to my turtles is from commercial sources.

There are also dealers at the Expo with insects for reptile food.  Crickets -- once just a main stay of the weekend fisherman -- are now heavily promoted by several major cricket breeders/sellers at the Expo each year. These same dealers also offer mealworms, "superworms" (like a mealworm on steroids), fruit flies & even silkworms.  All gourmet foods when it comes to reptiles.

Now when it comes to snakes -- time for some people reading this to start cringing -- just about all the snakes sold in the reptile trade & those featured at the Expo, do not eat insects or prepared foods.  The "slither group", such as Kingsnakes, Pythons & Boas, all eat MEAT ... mostly in the form of mice & rats. [I'm purposely going to avoid any mention of rabbits & chickens as food, although they are often used as food items for "big" snakes.]

If someone owns one of the above mentioned species of snakes, then they are feeding either mice or rats to their snakes, depending on the snakes size & the size of it's prey. [A snake -- if you haven't watched enough of the National Geographic Channel on television -- swallows it's food whole, having to "unlock" it's jaws to swallow it's food.  Food "too big" ... doesn't work for the snake.]

What also doesn't work for feeding a snake in captivity, is to feed the snake a mouse or rat which is -- here we go -- ALIVE.  Too many times a live rodent has been offered to a snake by it's owner, only to have the tables turned on the snake, as the "food" becomes the victor, killing the snake, or at worst, inflicting sever cuts & damage to the snake.  As many of the snakes at the Expo are selling for hundreds of dollars, sometimes thousands of dollars, having the snake "damaged" -- if not dead -- is a poor "R.O.I".  ["Return on Investment"]

The way to safely feed snakes is to only feed DEAD rodents to the snakes.  This leads us to another industry which has been built up around the interest in reptiles/snakes; selling FROZEN, DEAD rats & mice.  [I'm sure those not-to-be-mentioned rabbits are in there too, but I'm avoiding that mental ambush for you readers.]

One of the dealers I spent some time visiting with at this years Expo is a company called Mice Direct.  They had as part of their display, five floor freezers filled with mice & rats.

The above is an idea of how -- in this example, mice -- are packaged & sold.  The right size for your average Ball Python or small Boa Constrictor.  Just thaw & feed.

Most snakes in captivity quickly learn to eat ... "pre-killed food".  [That's the politically correct term.]  A dead rodent, on the end of forceps is "bonked" on the nose of a snake, which then lashes out & grabs the mouse/rat & begins the process of eating the meal.  No fuss.  No mess.  No dead/damaged snake.

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 For people breeding their snakes & needing to feed the resulting newborn baby snakes, then "pinky mice" are necessary.  "Pinkies" are the new-born, blind & hairless mice.  Thus the name. The above photo shows bags full of pinkies.

This is the fella I had a good time talking with.  I'm sorry I can't remember his name.  He was both interesting & informative on the subject of frozen rodents.  He estimated they had close to 100,000 frozen mice & rats at the show.

The above photo shows the various sizes of frozen rats.  Whatever the size of the snake to be fed, it is then "matched" to the corresponding appropriate sized rat. 

The National Reptile Breeders Expo is more than just reptiles. Frozen rodents were just another one of the featured displays & it was ... litterally ... "Death by the Dozens".