A topic that has come up a lot recently is what a keeper can use as an alternative food source . This is something that has interest me for almost ten years. I have always thought that a varied diet for our captive reptiles would be a good thing. We as keepers have adopted this mentality that if our reptiles don’t eat European lab rodents (mice or rats), they can’t thrive in captivity for us. Any field study you read on most species will show statistics and percentages of multiple different prey items that make up the complete diet of whatever species that study is on. So why don’t we try to do better in captivity with varied diets? A lot of the feeder suppliers have plenty of different prey that they produce. So the opportunity is there to get a varied diet with rodents, birds, pigs, rabbits, etc. Financial constraints do play a part in most keeper’s decision, as well as space. A reality of keeping reptiles is that it costs money and if your snake is happy and healthy eating rats, there is nothing wrong with feeding that animal appropriate sized rats for its whole life. Snakes do need whole, complete prey items to get everything they require nutritionally from their meals. So with that said, whole prey items should make up the majority of your snake’s diet. Whether it be mice, rats, chickens, quail, rabbits, ducks, pigs, you get the point. But I have researched other things that keepers have fed and have attempted feeding my own collection with alternative prey items.

Local Asian markets have plenty of options for alternative prey items, like seen above.

I want to preface this next part with a disclaimer. I am not saying anyone should only feed incomplete meals like the items I am about to talk about. I feed these items once every few months for my carpets and a little more frequently to my rat snakes and animals with faster metabolisms. Or I will add one of these items to a meal after a complete prey item has been consumed. My go to items are frog legs (old world rats really enjoy these), chicken, and duck necks. Chicken necks are a lot smaller than duck necks.

These duck necks are given to animals that are big enough to eat medium or larger rats.

The duck necks above are easily 3x the size of a chicken neck. So if I am feeding a duck neck to a python that is an adult, realistically they will only get 1-2 in a years time. Even a little variety is a good thing in my mind. Sub adult pythons and colubrids will be the perfect size for chicken necks and chicken hearts. I have noticed that most of my colubrids will absolutely go nuts for anything chicken related. I have also noticed an increased feeding response whenever I offer necks or hearts to some individual snakes. Another item I have just recently tried was duck feet. I got a lot of my ideas from a video Dan Mulleary did a few years ago on this same topic. My beauty snakes enjoyed the duck feet a lot. I was honestly surprised they took them. I choose duck feet over chicken feet due to the duck feet having smaller exposed claws.

Cell phone picture of one of my Chinese beauty snakes taking one of the duck feet.

Another prey item I have not personally used but have seen other keepers use is whole fish. Especially if the species you are working with eats fish in the wild, this could be something you can look into. Asian markets are good for this food source as well. I have seen plenty of whole frozen freshwater fish available at my local Asian markets. I’ve seen barbs, gourami, and other species available. So just another option to look into.

One of my favorite prey items to switch things up with is avian prey. I use chicks and quail due to the ease of sourcing them through commercial feeder producers.

Here is a neotropical bird eating snake (Phrynonax poecilonotus) eating a f/t day old quail.

Birds are a great way to switch up the diet whether you are using whole birds or parts. Obviously you can use whole birds more often than a chicken neck or heart. Most of my snakes seem to enjoy both just as much. I am starting to get more into some of the South American bird eating colubrids. Phrynonax poecilonotus are notorious for being difficult to get started on rodents as hatchlings. So I want to try to use day old button quail to try to remedy the issue of having to tease feed these guys for the first year or so of life to bring down the stress they go through during that process. This might work, it might not. My point is, be open to other prey avenues besides the mice and rats that we have become accustomed to. You would be surprised how a difficult feeder might turn into a feeding machine if you offer it something else.

Here is a standard chicken heart next to a hopper mouse for size comparison.

Another option is to scent rodents with products like the scenting juices from Reptilinks. Or you can make your own if you don’t mind a mess on your hands.

The last thing I want to bring up is with feeding birds. It is well known that day old chicks are not the best and can give you a less than desirable end result after digestion. So how can you remedy this? I prefer to use 2-3 week old quail. They are the same size as a day old chick but they have a more developed skeleton and more mature organ system. If I am feeding colubrids or amazon tree boas for example, I prefer the older bird to the day old bird.

Size comparison shot, from left to right, hopper mouse, day old quail chick, day old chick, 2-3 week old quail.

Like I said above, nothing beats a whole prey item. I recommend that whole prey items make up the majority of your animal’s diet. But if you want to switch things up, I gave you some options you can try. I treat everything the same as far as how I thaw out and heat up prey whether if its a rat or a chicken heart. No special instructions for any of the items that I discussed before presenting them to your animal. If your situation calls for you to only feed your snake one type of whole prey item, that is 100% ok. This was not written to tell anyone they should do exactly what I do. This just another option that you can feed your animal a couple times a year to add variety to their diet.