What Do Snakes Eat?
Snakes are becoming increasingly popular in the United States, and certain species, like as the ball python and corn snake, come in a broad range of colours and patterns, making them even more appealing.
The most often asked question from persons wishing to buy a snake is, “What do they eat?” It depends on the species of snake, but because they are all carnivores, they will eat mostly animal protein.
Whether you’re considering about getting a snake for your house, keep reading as we look at some of the most common types to see what they consume in the wild as well as in captivity to see if you could stomach their diet.
What Do Small Snakes Consume?
1. Natural Diet
Smaller snakes, such as the ring-necked snake, garter snake, and California green snake, consume mostly insects, although they will also eat salamanders, lizards, frogs, worms, and other snakes.
Many of these tiny snakes are not hazardous to people, but you should always exercise caution with any snake, especially if you are untrained, because even non-venomous bites can inflict significant injury.
2. Captive Diet
You will mostly feed crickets, earthworms, and mealworms to your smaller snakes. Because these insects lack bones, you might have to give your captive snake a calcium supplement, as well as a vitamin D3 supplement if you don’t utilise UVB illumination.
Fortunately, these two nutrients are frequently packed together. You’ll apply the supplement to the insects just before serving them to your pet.
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The insects you serve your snake must be gut loaded, that means they must have been given nutritious vegetable matter for at least 24 hours before being fed to your reptile. Always buy your insects rather than discovering them in your home since wild bugs might have parasites that can harm your pet’s health.
What Do Medium-sized Snakes Eat?
1. Natural Diet
Medium-sized snakes, such as the green unicorn, Honduran milk snake, and corn snake, are a bit too big for crickets and worms, but they will eat them if they can’t access anything else. Larger prey such as mice, frogs, lizards, and birds are preferred.
If they can locate them, some snakes may even devour eggs. Many of these snakes are dangerous and may cause major health problems in people, therefore before addressing these snakes in the wild, make sure you have lots of expertise.
2. Captive Diet
Your medium-sized captive snake would eat mice mostly. For the greatest results, most experts advocate serving frozen and thawed captive-bred mice.
Wild mice collected on your property may pique your snake’s interest and stimulate its hunting instincts, but they can also transmit parasites and germs to your pet, causing health problems. You won’t need to coat the food with calcium powder because your snake consumes the mice whole, along with the hair and bones.
What Do Large Snakes Eat?
1. Natural Diet
Large snakes such as the green anaconda, Burmese python, and boa constrictor typically consume fish, birds, reptiles, smaller snakes, squirrels, rabbits, and even larger animals such as deer. Fortunately for humans, almost all of these huge snakes are sluggish and non-venomous, making them excellent pets.
2. Captive Diet
Rats are the primary prey of large captive snakes. Rats are a good-sized meal that your snake could easily digest and include all of the nutrients it needs to keep healthy.
There is no need to dust such food, and, like mice, rats may be purchased frozen, making them easy to obtain and store. Furthermore, choosing captive-bred rats reduces the chance of accidently passing germs or parasites to your snake.
Take Away Message
Snakes are voracious eaters in the wild, eating almost anything they can get their heads around. In reality, snakes have the incredible capacity to extend their jaws 150 degrees in order to swallow food bigger than their bodies.
Smaller snakes will consume mostly insects and worms, but as the species becomes larger, so will the food it eats. Some of the larger snakes may ingest huge animals such as deer, although they prefer to eat smaller prey such as rabbits, squirrels, and rodents.
To ensure your snake‘s health, we suggest that you only use commercially supplied captive-bred insects, mice, and rats.
