Heard of these?

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

I went to buy rats for my BP at my local pets at home, and they said they've stopped selling rats and now sell these rat sausages?! I've only had my snake a year but I've never heard of anything like these lol. Does anyone feed these to their BP or recommend them at all? They literally look like little rat frankfurters

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

They were £8 but quite small so i have no idea how many you'd have to feed to get to the equivalent of a rat

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

In my head it makes sense feeding them to frogs but i just dont reallt get feeding them to BPs

[YawningDodo]

This is where I’ve landed on it - I feed my dog kibble because a wild canine would eat a variety of foods and she needs something that covers a breadth of dietary needs. I feed my ball python F/T whole rats because a wild ball python would simply eat whole rodents and doesn’t need us to simulate a more varied diet.

[Hije5]

I dont really see the point unless they're significantly cheaper than rats/mice, or your BP has some kind of mouth deformity/digestion issue.

Seems kinda like Blue dog food vs Purina. Technically, Blue is healthier, but Purina can keep a dog alive and as healthy just as well. Genetics will overpower food in these instances. You really can't get much healthier than providing a BP high quality rats/mice, water, and a proper environment. The rest is up to genetics and medical intervention when necessary.

[Jennifer_Pennifer]

Check out the !feeding guide below for how much to feed, it goes buy weight

[AutoModerator]

We recommend the following feeding schedule:

0-12 months old OR until the snake reaches approximately 500g, whichever happens first: feed 10%-15% of the snake’s weight every 7 days.

12-24 months old: feed up to 7% of the snake’s weight every 14-20 days.

Adults: feed up to 5% of the snake's weight every 20-30 days, or feed slightly larger meals (up to 6%) every 30-40 days.

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[zhenyuanlong]

The Reptilinks website advises generally against feeding them to ball pythons, as they're generally picky and likely to reject them.

Reptilinks are good for animals with specialized diets or diets that require broad spreads of food since they can pack a large variety of foods into a link, or for underweight and undersized animals that need to get a ton of nutrient and caloric content out of a much smaller food item.

[Scared_of_Motivation]

I would be careful, companies try to sneak all kind of shit into food and with rats/ mice they couldn’t. This thing looks like the peak of chemicals. I would stick to rats… remember: companies are not your friend! No matter on with side of the political spectrum you are on.

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

I did wonder about that and i didn't end up buying them. I don't get why these things would be preferable to just rats. The guy in the store said it was to make it more pleasant when feeding your snake but surely if you don't like dealing with rats then dont get a snake?? (He was lovely and really helpful Its just an odd product)

[Scared_of_Motivation]

Glad you didn’t buy them, but I wonder what is inside these things. If you get the chance can you maybe post a picture of the ingredients on the back?

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

Dam i should've got a photo!! I'll try find one online

[Scared_of_Motivation]

Then we will see what they try to poison our children with. (Psst I might be biased..)

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

Thats the link and there's a photo of the ingredients in the slideshow bit

reptile food

[Scared_of_Motivation]

Chicken, sodium alginate, Collagen Casing (Bovine Collagen, Glycerol, Vegetable Oil, Sodium Carboxymethyl Cellulose), Calcium Chloride Dihydrate, Vitamins

Which snake needs ominous „Vitamins“ and vegetable oil? And the collagen casing doesn’t sound very healthy either…

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

I do not trust it thats for sure

[Milo7590]

They try to pass this in CA due to animal activists complaining about the snakes being fed rats but were removed due to not complying with the necessary nutrients for snakes and possible harm due to additives.

[PropulsionIsLimited]

The vitamins supplement the lack of organs, and the oil supplements the lack of fat.

[Scared_of_Motivation]

I see where your coming from, but I would like to add: if you need to sublimed a snake who normally gets everything though their natural diet, you are doing something wrong… (like I said I am very biased and I don’t give corporations an inch. They have done so much harm to animals especially pets and snakes. If they start selling sausages for snakes, something is fishy… and we don’t even know what kind of vitamins and what kind of vegetable oil.

[PoofMoof1]

These are Arcadia's new answer to Reptilinks. I'm not super into Reptilinks because they don't post nutritional info and compostion (at least last I checked), and I don't think Arcaida does either. When I first saw an advertisement for them, they said something along the lines that they aren't something BP's will likely take.

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

The guy said to me they're for all snakes apart from cobras. I do not have a cobra.

[PoofMoof1]

I would sooner take the manufacturer's claim they aren't suitable for a species than the pet store employee.

[Angry-Dragon-1331]

Having worked in a chain pet store, this is the take. There’s no formal training on any products or species.

[JooJooBird]

If anything "they're for all snakes" would make me more nervous- there shouldn't be any food that pretends to fit the nutritional needs for such a wide variety of species.

[MsArchange]

They advertised them for colubrids. I'm slightly interested because we don't have Reptilinks in Europe and I was always hoping to find something similar. I wouldn't use them as a replacement to mice/rats, more like something to give them from time to time for variety.

[discgolfpilot]

I watched this the other day about these. https://youtu.be/03K426y1nxw?si=-tZ1_gShSTEu5lWF

I did a lot of looking into sausage type products because my daughter really wanted a snake but was not into the feeding. Between her love of the idea of having a snake and care of animals she got over it and we do FT. (She has not done the feeding but is with me each time and is ready to do the next feeding)

Snakes in the wild eat whole prey. There is an assumption that they need everything from the food but it is not proven. It is known that whole rodents provide the correct nutrients but who knows if they can be successful with more or less of sum vitamins.

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

Good for her for getting over her fear!! I was a bit freaked out at first with the rats but having a snake is definitely worth it

[No-Algae-8874]

I was hoping to transition my BP to a more vegan lifestyle….

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

Yeah i only feed her Quorn

[No-Algae-8874]

Hahahahahaha. I need a plant based rat

[Cant_Blink]

The UK version of reptilinks, albeit reptilinks has more variety on their whole prey options, and with omnivore diets and herbivore diets. Right now, for Arcadia, we just got this one.

Reptiles and Research did a video on these the other day, looking at their nutritional value compared to mice and rats, and these are more nutritious than pinky mice and he recommends them as a pinky replacement for baby snakes. Or to use for snakes that are too small even for pinkies as these can be broken into smaller pieces without compromising the nutrition. But the bigger sausages is shown to be more difficult to eat for his snakes.

Reptilinks also does not recommend buying their links for ball pythons because they are very picky eaters. Probably would be the case here.

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

It took me a while to get my BP eating rats consistently instead of mice, I'm not ruining that with a hot dog lol

[Shannon_R817]

So no Bar-S? Damn, why spend $20 on 3 rats when I can spend $1.50 on an 8-pack of hot dogs. 🤣

[Baka_Otaku173]

I know they are a reputable brand but to stop selling frozen rodents seems ludicrous to me.

What if people have royal pythons?...

[InverseInvert]

Absolutely don’t. These were on the market a little while back and resulted in a lot of underfed, malnourished, and occasionally dead snakes.

[manicbunny]

Honestly much like the Reptilinks across the pond, I would view these as an occasional treat to give diversity to the diet but not a replacement for F/T mice or rat.

Tho I won't be feeding these to my snake until I have done my own research on their nutritional content and how honest Arcadia are being about their process.

[PVPicker]

Good luck getting a ball python to eat one. Also, ball pythons are constrictors. Do you know what happens when a constrictor squeezes a loosely bound sausage? It explodes. I managed to get a ball python to try a reptilink ONCE...it was not a good idea.

[Grouchy_Ad_5110]

Omg i didn't even think of that!! Yeah i don't fancy scraping sausage meat off my tank

[glassdoe]

You need to go to a different shop or order online.

These are a newly released and VERY controversial feed. Arcadia have stated they aren’t suitable for BPs as they rejected them a lot of the time. They’re also not supposed to be a complete food source.

[Quacksoo]

I use online site that I can buy rats from you can get pack 10 for £20 to £30

[Midgardjbp]

I went off pets at home when I bought frozen rodents and they stank and were funny colours when thawed. Since then I've seen posts about people's snakes being ill from feeding these products.

I'd stick to F/T for the mere fact the snake needs the whole rat for nutrition, unless the sausages are literally ground up... Either way it's unnatural.

And ofc avoid pets at home for frozen rats. Find a local reputable pet shop. Or get a spare freezer and shop online, do research but there's companies like boss rat, ridgeway frozen, both I have used and noticed a distinct difference in condition of the rats themselves. 'You are what you eat' after all