Chicken = Bad news?

[Kitt]

How do y'all feel about feeding a Burm chicken? I'm plumb out of feeder rats for the week and I don't want my girlie to go hungry... I've heard horror stories about chicken once it comes out the other end; is it really that bad?

It isn't much of a stretch for me to imagine a Burm of about her size (six odd feet) catching and eating a bird in the wild....

[ball21]

I have also heard about quail and chicken smelling worse when it comes out. To me thats a load of crap! :) I have fed quail on numerous ocassions and when it comes out it smells like................ poop! Its poop its going to smell bad no matter what. Thats my opinion at least.

[shivaskeeper]

I get the food for my burm from the local feed and seed. When they are out of rabbits, or they are to small I feed, I get chickens. They tend to smell a BITworse coming back out than rabbits do, but it's not as bad as all that. The nastiest bit is the occasional undigested feathers sticking out of the pile of crap. And as other people have said on some of the other threads here, I have aslo noted her skin looks alot better getting the occasioal fowl in her diet.

Greg

[Hennek]

Only thing I can think that would be bad (other than the smell) would be no hair to slow down the passage of food, which could result in dirrarea, which can result in dehydration. I'm assuming you're feeding chicken parts? Or whole chickens feather and everything?

[shivaskeeper]

I feed whole chickens. Beaks, feathers, toes, the whole deal. Never had a problem w/ diarreha or anything like that. The big thing to remember about feeding any kind of whole poultry is that they don't have that smooth transition from head to neck to shoulders that feeder mammals have. They have a real tiny head, a real narrow neck and then a wide breast and wings. The way the wings fold up can make the swallowing a bit difficult the first time a snake feeds on one. Mine have always figured out how to use their coils to smooth the wings down to make it a bit easier but that first feeding can take a while. The snakes do tend to get hungry sooner than they do with rats / rabbits also. Birds do have alot of bulk, but there is alot of feather included in that bulk. I've also never had a problem going back to rabbits after feeding a chicken. I wouldn't recomend feeding parts. Not enough nutrition in parts.

Greg

[Ian]

I feed chickens on and off, and I have no problems. And poop is poop

[Kitt]

And poop is poop

That's what Neal keeps saying, but for some reason I had the impression that it was real super bad...

Think I'll try and find her a chicken this weekend.. Heck, it's New Hampshire, I should be able to find one just sitting around on the side of the road! ;)

Thanks for the help!!

[-Brian]

Both of Shivaskeeper's posts are right on the money IMO. They do have a harder time getting it down. One of the biggest problems seems to be the floppy neck. The wierdest thing for me is th undigested feathers. I do not see the occasional one in crap. My burm craps a nice neat bundle of feather stems, a few days after the normal crap! I cannot imagine that experience! I really did not notice the poop being much worse in odor. It is, however, less firm. Probably for the same reason as the nice, shiny skin that follows; lots of digestable fat. Chickens are harder for me to get, but I try to at least feed a couple per year. My smaller snakes get RodentPro quail about every 5th or 6th feeding. - Brian

[Kitt]

Chickens are harder for me to get

Than rabbits, or G-pigs? There are virtually NO meat rabbit breeders around here. :(

I think I should be able to get some surplus roosters from a friend's farm... Is there anything worse about roosters than hens? It would be dead, of course, and I'd cut off the spurs before giving it to her... They should be the same nutritionally though, right?

[thunder]

G-pigs are really no good. They are really just all fat. I have fed chickens and ducks to my boas before (not my burm), because I can sometimes get them for free from my work, and I didnt have any problems with smelly/runny poops. The feathers were not a problem, but my feeder birds were usually not quite full grown, so it's possible that there plumage, which was still a bit fuzzy, were easier to digest. I imagine that it wouldn't be harmful to remove the feathers, but feeding just chicken parts, as opposed to a whole animal, is in my opinion a bad idea, as large constrictors are meant to eat whole animals, and that's how their nutrition is balanced. I guess chicken parts every once in a while wouldn't be detrimental, but it's important that they mostly eat whole animals so that they are getting everything that they need. I had one boa whose previous owner fed her exclusively chicken parts, usually wings which are mostly skin and fat, and she had such a bad calcium deficiency that her jaw felt like rubber.

[shivaskeeper]

Depending on where you live you might want to look into a local feed and seed store. You would be amazed at what they have for sale in some of those places. The one I go to has rabbits , chickens, guinea hens (a really funky looking chicken thing) the occasional pigs / pigletts, turkeys, doves / pidgeons and sometimes geese. As far as cutting the spurs off a chicken, why? If you kill it first the spurs won't be any worse than claws on a rabbit. If you are feeding live, rig a pole to hang the chicken upside down. Thier hearts are to weak to pump the blood back out thier heads so they pass out. As far as a a difference between roosters and hens; samller spurs on hens; with regard to nutrition I don't think there is any. If you have a friend that has brood hens see if yoiu can get the ones that are past egg laying. They usually go into the dinner pot anyway. And for the record they were feather stems in the pile 'o poop, not whole feathers. It's just odd to see anything even remotely recognizable in a pile of Burm poop. I means they have some wicked digestion.

Greg

[thunder]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I've also used ringnecked doves before and they worked out fine.

[Ryan77]

A farm raised chicken would not be any more of a problem than a farm raised duck :). I just wouldn't post pics of the ordeal without the proper heading;). Poop stinks period. Mouse, rat, rabbit, or otherwise. Ian is right.

[Corbin]

I have a male albino that only eats chickens (thats what the original owner raised him on), he will not switch to rabbits for anything. He went 6 months with no food being offered rabbits through out and never took one, he lost no weight at all but I finally gave up (this was my last method for trying to switch him, nothing worked) and offered a chicken and he ate. I have never had any problems with diarreha or anything either, and IMO it smells no worse than any other snake poop I have ever smelled.