A few words from Alan Francis

[adamanteus]

Hi Guys, I just received a PM from Alan Francis. It seems it was intended for all of us, so here you go!

Hi James, and everybody else on the forum!

It's been a long time since I visited the forum - I'm not even sure I have visited since Jurgen was running it. It certainly looks as if the forum is busy, and I will try to find more time to visit. Especially if there are any more postings like that astonishing red eastern garter from Carolina! Wow!

I've had quite a good year for breeding this year, with flames, melanistics, cyrtopsis ocellatus, concinnus and infernalis, but still no success with the elusive San Franciscos - hopefully next year.

I'd be interested to know if anybody else out there has experimented with cat food. A friend of mine in Liverpool a few years back told me that he fed his garters on one of the better quality tinned cat foods. I didn't believe him, but tried it myself, and it seems to work well. Babies don't seem to take to it, but adults do, and I now feed the majority of my adult females on it, and have done for a couple of years. Haven't really encountered any problems with it.

Best wishes,

Alan


Didn't someone else start a thread somewhere about using cat food for their Garters?

[adamanteus]

Thanks for posting Alan, and welcome to the forum.
I have used cat food in the past for various lizard species, but never tried it on my Garters. The first question that springs to my mind is 'what effect does this diet have on the faeces'? Are they runny? Or smelly? It would certainly be a cheap alternative to the hundreds of pinkies I'm using at the moment. Which brand do you recommend, Alan.

[Elliot]

Actually, I'd be interested in this too.

[LushLulu85]

Alan is actually a member? welcome alan lol. (sorry, im running a lil slow lol)
i am not spending that much on mice at the mo but if i do manage to get the concinnus, flame and infernalis off Alan next year then i might consider it.
how much would you give a baby and an adult. about a teaspoon full?

[Snaky]

I hope Alan will have time in the future to visit us, would be interesting to know his opinions .

I've experimented with cat food and it works very good for some species. But buy some good cat foods, because some of them contain a lot of salt and rest products. And cat food contains a lot of proteïns, so I would't give them solely cat food. With young one's it's important to give them a lot of calcium with it, because otherwise they will grow to fast because of the proteïn shot. I was able to give it to young snakes also, of only a few months old.

I've tried and it worked with:
-cyrtopsis cyrtopsis
-marcianus marcianus
-sirtalis concinnus

Will in the future try some other species also

[zooplan]

Hallo Alan,
many things have changed since it was Jürgens site.

I tried cat food as addition to the normal diet of all my snakes and had different success, but never tried to change thier diet to only cat food.

[Elliot]

Since we're on this topic, does it matter what "flavor" it is? I'd like to try it for my younger snakes.

[adamanteus]

I would presume the fish varieties would be more popular with our Garters, I would only use top brands and I would be reading the ingredients list very closely...... but I'm going to give it a try.

[Elliot]

What would you want to watch out for in the ingreidients?

[adamanteus]

I'm not really sure, Elliot...... anything 'unnatural' I guess.