Are Guinea Pigs Used for Feeding Snakes

PhilK

Very Well-Known Member

• #2

Sounds perfectly OK to me... remember a lot of people view rats and rabbits as pets too.

• #3

wokka, I have used and bred guinea pigs as snake food ...to me, no different
(pet wise) then say a rabbit or rat ...the only draw back is that they dont have anywhere near the birth numbers as rabbits do ..hence only having 2-4 babies tops ...but other then that SNAKES LOVE THEM ....oh avoid the long hair type as their hair is a lot more course then a rabbit and so short hair variety is best .

• #4

Guinea pigs are cute. They have big snoults and beedy little black eyes and therefore I wont feed them to any of my snakes/monitors.
On the other hand I really don't like rabbits so I try to feed as many as I can. Ick @ rabbits.

Hows that for feedback?

• #5

I have been to scared to try it what i heard is that they are too fatty for the python and is very unhealthy for them but i do breed guinea pigs & i would be interested to know the proper facts

• #6

I have fed guinea pigs many times. no difference to rabbits imo

• #7

I'd prefer feeding guinea pigs than rabbits - rabbits are cute guinea pigs are ferral loooking little things their beady eyes creep me out lol

• #8

awww I honestly love my guinea pigs. If I had to feed one i would definatly have to get someone else to gas them and feed it to the snake.
I have one guinea pig that talks to you and smooches you like a cat does.

• #9

my mate down the street feeds his diamonds guinea pigs, biggest diamonds ive seen..

• #12

It has been hard to keep up supplies of rabbits for feeding large snakes. We have about 100 rabbit does but that is not enough to supply the demand. I was wondering what is the feedback on feeding Guinea pigs which might be easier to find and breed as they are not used for human consumption in Australia. On the other hand a lot of keepers may view guinea pigs as pets and be concerned about using them for feed.

Don't sell any for a year Warwick, in a years time you'll have a thousand does and that will keep us going !
Guinea pigs are fine for snakes, I have heard there is a higher fat levels,but young fit ones would be good.

PhilK

Very Well-Known Member

• #15

guinea pigs are very cute and they sound very cute! please just stick to rabbits.. they are the ferral invaders i think we can stand to lose a few.

Are guinea pigs native? Just because they are 'cute' and 'sound cute' doesn't give them any more of a right to life than rabbits or rats. I know plenty of people who think rabbits are cute. I for one thing guinea pigs aren't cute so would prefer to feed them

Unless the original poster goes and catches feral rabbits to feed their snakes then being feral has nothing to do with it as it isn't doing anything to the feral population - unless some of their rabbits escape in which case the feral population would actually increase.

• #17

I have over the years found a number of pockets of feral guinea pigs in parks etc around Brisbane that had obviously been released by someone who didn't want them anymore. One group was even complete with young of various ages. A veritable little herd.

All of these groups were around thickets of lantana which afforded a degree of protection to them. Needless to say once I found them they didn't remain feral for very long.
Could they have established a viable long term population?....probably not as foxes are common in the area too but they had been living there for a while before I managed to round them all up.

I can also vouch that reptiles love them, as do quolls.

• #19

Yeh pigs will be eaten nicely. I just found that they were not as tollarant of summer as rabbits and yeh, they dont yeild much. Mind you the piglets would be nice size for smaller snakes. As for cute, yeh well, snakes gotta eat. Its how you see them at the time, bit like selling hatchies--if you get to attached to them you'd keep them all. I have had pet rabbits, I have fed rabbits to snakes, had pet rats, fed rats to snakes. had kids...:shock:no wait...they're still here

• #20

the key to breeding them well is ..provide lots of tunnel hides..I use plastic plumbing pipes ...summer time can be difficult to alot of rodents ...keep the cage under shade at all times in summer ...and a good hose down to soak the grassed area that the cage is on works well too ...in wet seasons(like days and days of rain) I put my cage up on to a pallet that way good air flow but not left sitting on wet ground...just means picking alot of grass instead of moving cage...the beauty of baby piggies is they come out running, fully developed not in pinkie phase ...after 2 to 3 weeks can be taken off mum and she can breed again ..

lindquistdausitherer1995.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.aussiepythons.com/threads/guinea-pigs-as-feed.138762/

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