Rodents And Chicks Used As Reptile Food
In your reptile supplier's shop will be at least one freezer, the contents of which you may well find rather gruesome!!
Inside will be a variety of dead animals, mainly rodents that are sold as reptile food.
Below we list the most common items that the shop will be stocking.
Pinkies/Pups
Pinkies are newly born mice and pups are newly born rats.Pinkies are the staple diet of many hatchlings, such as corn snakes they are also used as part of the diet for many lizards.
Fuzzies
Fuzzies are young rats and mice that have just started developing hair.Like pinkies, fuzzies are mainly used for feeding young snakes.
Adult and Sub-Adult Mice
Mice are the most popular feed fed to snakes and are generally available in different sizes, form small upto 'monster'.As your snake grows you would typically move on to larger and larger sizes, and then maybe on to larger prey items.
Rat
If you snake has outgrown mice, then it is time to move it onto rats.These are available in various sizes including some that are very large, so unless your snake is very big these will be its diet for the rest of its life.
Chicks
Chicks, sometimes called day-old chicks are the only non rodent food regularly fed to carnivorous reptiles.Chicks are a cheap food source but not as nutritious as rodents.
Apart from feeding your animal chicks, they can be used to 'scent' food to entice reluctant feeders to eat.