They won't eat :( is cat food really ok?

[Philminator]

So only 1 of my 4 eastern garters are eating and it's been amost a week the tiny one is a real pig and is always biting me and eating worms I read somewhere that you can feed your snakes cat food? really? or is this a joke? I have 2 cans of canned cat food seafood supreme and whitefish and tuna, I'm assuming that the whitefish and tuna might be good? should I try it? or will it kill them?
PS I hear so many mixed feelings about garters eating cat food, it's like is it ok or not? very frustrating to not have a clear answer when googling :P

[kibakiba]

Don't feed them cat food. You do not know what is in there and if you love the snakes, I wouldn't even dare try it.

Keep offering food, they will eat when they are ready.

[Philminator]

Don't feed them cat food. You do not know what is in there and if you love the snakes, I wouldn't even dare try it.

Keep offering food, they will eat when they are ready.

ok, it was on gartersnake.co.uk by Allen who said he's been using it but I was skeptical

[kibakiba]

Natural cat food, like 100% natural might be okay depending on what its in. Some companies will use salt in their cat food, which will kill baby snakes. Most commercial companies will put some sort of medicine in their cat food, which doesn't seem like it would be good for the snakes at all. If anything, if you want to give them fish, a little frozen thawed salmon, trout or tilapia is much better, and cheaper in the long run.

[Didymus20X6]

Snakes are not cats. At least not the last time I checked. And last time I checked, Purina doesn't make a Snake Chow.

[Philminator]

my goal is to have them eating worms and then eventually switch them to mice

[d_virginiana]

I barely even trust cat food for my cats... The guy that posted that is either lying or he's been very lucky nothing has happened to his snakes.

[Philminator]

I barely even trust cat food for my cats... The guy that posted that is either lying or he's been very lucky nothing has happened to his snakes.

I hear ya, I have 2 cats and I barely trust that canned stuff.
Alan's Garter Snakes - Maintenance of Garter Snakes is where I got that info ....good news is 2 of 4 are now eating, I had to place my "male" in a seperate container and within a minute he attacked the worm , the third is in shed he/she doesn't need to eat , going to try the 4th now to see if I get lucky

[RedSidedSPR]

Heck. No. There's my answer.

[mb90078]

I would exhaust other options first. Feeding them in their main tank, feeding them in a separate tank, feeding them as a group, feeding them solo, feeding them at different times of the day, different food items (maybe live fish), etc etc etc.

To answer your question, to my understanding, yes, people have done it on rare occasions, but it is definitely not recommended.