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What Human Foods Can Snakes Eat?

what human foods can snakes eat?

So you heard that your friend has been giving his snake chicken nuggets. That’s cool, right? Now, you are thinking if you can give it as a treat to your snake. How about your leftover Caprese salad? Will all of this food be okay for your snake?

Snakes can consume human food like eggs, poultry, fish, pork, and beef when they are unprocessed. This means that the food should be given in its basic and raw form. You cannot give fried or saucy food to your snake as there are already other ingredients in the food that may make your snake sick.

If you are tired of giving your snakes mice and want to switch things up, this is the article for you! We will talk about which foods can specific types of snakes can eat. Further, we will also discuss how certain foods can benefit your snake. So read on!

Can I Give My Snake Human Food?

Yes, you can most definitely give your snake some human food. But this is human food in the sense that they can consume red and white meat and even eggs when they are still raw. Technically speaking, these are still human foods, right? Just the uncooked version.

The reason behind this is not just only to replicate what they eat in the wild, but giving food in its most basic and raw form is safer for your snake.

You cannot give your snake food that has spices and herbs simply because they do not eat them, thus their bodies may find it difficult to break down these ingredients.

Keep in mind that snakes are carnivorous. They cannot survive and thrive without meat in their lives. Their bodies are not meant to process fruits and vegetables.

If a snake consumed fruits, vegetables, and even plants, this is purely accidental (probably a leaf of some sort got stuck to their prey while consuming it).

If you need a pick-me-up, here are baby snakes taking their first meal! But in line with what we are saying, the first meal of a baby snake is important, and of course, it should be the right food, which is also meat. In this case, the foods are pinkies.

In such a case where you are tired of giving thawed mice to your snake and want to try giving it chicken or fish, some owners have found success in steaming these foods.

Others who have tried giving their snakes fried food have shared that they only give the white meat part and disregard the crispy skin.

Nevertheless, the same owners dissuade this practice as the main source of food for your snakes. For a lot of snake owners, giving live or frozen mice is still the best and safest option.

What Type Of Human Food Can Snakes Eat?

It is important to remember that the type of human food that you can give to your snake will also depend on the type of your snake.

At the same time, there are certain requirements for some food that you have to fulfill for it to be considered a complete and healthy meal for your snake.

Can I Feed My Snake Eggs?

Yes, you can feed almost any type of snake eggs, as long as they take it. If you are a long-time owner of various snakes, you know that there are snakes that are just plain picky with their food, thus they just want to stick to a certain kind of food even though you offer them eggs.

Of course, the ever-famous egg-eating snake can eat eggs. Other snakes that will gladly feed on eggs are rat snakes, corn snakes, fox snakes, speckled kingsnakes, and other snakes that are large enough to eat small eggs.

Now, as to the type of eggs, the snake owner community is still divided on this. Some think that it is best to offer quail eggs to make sure that the shells can be properly broken down and regurgitated.

While others think that giving chicken or duck eggs is great because these types of snakes were made to eat larger eggs.

This is how snakes eat eggs. In this video, you can see that the egg is a large one and that the snake can accommodate its size and completely regurgitate the shell. Of course, for baby snakes, it is safer to give little quail eggs.

Can I Feed My Snake Red Meat?

Yes, you can feed your snake red meat and they will actually love it (if they are trained to take frozen and thawed meat).

The important thing to remember is that snakes consume their prey whole. Therefore, if you are planning to offer them red meat, all of the pieces should be there.

Now, it is a bit impossible to buy a live pig or beef and freeze it, thaw it out, and offer to your snake. Further, feeding these large animals live is considered inhumane. So what can you do?

You can purchase complete freshly killed cuts of pork, beef, or rabbit meat from your local butcher. When we say complete, this should include parts from the head (brains, eyes, etc.) up to their tails. You can then ask your butcher to grind all of them together.

The finished product is what you can offer to your snake. This ensures that they get all the nutrition that they can get from that specific animal.

Sounds tedious, right? Well, this is what you have to do if you want to switch to red meat in terms of it being your main feeder.

Certain cuts of meat will not just cut it. If you offer a beef shank or a pork cheek to your snake, all of the nutrients needed for it to grow will not be there. Just like in the wild, it should be the whole animal.

So, if you are planning to give select pork or beef parts to your snake, it can only be treated as treats and not their primary feeder.

Snakes that are more open to red meat are the bigger ones like ball pythons, cobras, anacondas, and the like. Other owners also found success in feeding these to rat snakes.

As you can see in this video, a beef heart was only used as a supplement to the primary feeder which is a pinkie. The beef heart alone is not healthy for your snake.

Can I Feed My Snake White Meat?

Similar to red meat, you can also feed your snake white meat which can be chicks, chicken, fowl, fish, etc. But just like red meat, if you want to use it as the primary feeder, it should be given whole.

In this case, it is plausible to offer a whole chick or chicken depending on the size of your snake. Yes, the feathers and all should be intact. Again, it is up to you if you want to go about it through live feeding or frozen and thawed feeding.

Most snakes would eat whole poultry when offered to them as opposed to cut up parts of poultry. So if you want to try this out, it is better to offer your snake the whole thing.

As for fish, not a lot of snakes eat fish and they will usually shy away from fish when offered to them. The reason behind this is that their bodies cannot digest fish properly.

Some hognose snake owners have shared that their snakes fell sick after consuming fish. It’s a good thing that those that fell sick got better in just a few days.

However, there are snakes that can consume fish without any problems like, ribbon snakes, garter snakes, and water snakes.

Studies have concluded that they can consume fish even as their primary feeder simply because they are water-dwelling snakes, so their bodies are equipped to digest fish.

The snakes that can eat poultry are ball pythons, boa constrictors, Burmese pythons, green tree pythons, rat snakes, corn snakes, and other larger snakes.

This video will help a lot for you to give the right white meat to your snakes. For some of them, they will simply not eat mice, no matter how hard you train them, so it is best to find alternatives.

When offering red or white meat to snakes, it is best to offer them freshly-killed meat (which you can freeze and thaw later on) For a lot of snake owners, their saying is “Freshly-killed or none at all”

Can Snakes Eat Fruits And Vegetables?

Snakes are carnivorous so they rely on meat to survive. Therefore, it is unnatural for them to feed on fruits and vegetables even as a source of moisture and water.

It was observed by researchers that snakes tend to choose starvation and dehydration as opposed to eating a slice of watermelon offered to them. This goes to show that offering fruits and vegetables to your snake is a no-go.

In cases where snakes were found to have ingested certain plants or fruit, it is almost always due to accidental ingestion. This is the same case where snakes were found to have stones and other odd things in their body. Everything was just by accident.

Therefore, it is not wise to give fruits and vegetables to your snake. In the case of vegetarianism, it is possible as some snakes consume eggs only.

We have already discussed those snakes previously but an example of a “vegetarian” snake is the egg-eating snake.

can snakes eat eggs
A black rat snake is eating a bird. Yes, in the wild, this can happen.

Conclusion

You can offer uncooked human foods to snakes. This can range from eggs, red meat, and white meat. The golden rule when feeding red or white meat to snakes is that it should always be offered whole.

This should be done especially if you are planning to switch to red or white meat as the primary feeder as opposed to pinkies or mice. Never feed your snakes cooked food as this will cause more harm than good.

Pierre And The ReptileCraze Team
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