Snakes and Calcium Supplements

The use of supplements with snakes is a controversial subject. Many believe that because snakes receive whole prey items then they are receiving all the nutrients they would need from their food (calcium from the bones etc) and therefore no additional supplementation is needed.

Paws for Thought believe that it is neccessary to supplement the prey items of very young snakes feeding on pinkies and fluffs as these younger prey items do not contain the same ratio of nutrients as adult mice.

Some people argue that pinkies and fluffs contain the same ratio of nutrients as adult prey items. This is not true. Below is a link to a detailed scientific study that examines the nutritional content of various prey items including mice.

Nutrient Composition of Whole Vertebrate Prey

Below is an extract from the pdf (page 12)

(All the figures above refer to the Dry Mass, meaning the water content of the prey has been excluded.)

It's a bit hard to read so to summarize, Pinkie mice contain 1.17% calcium while adult mice contain 2.98% calcium!

So pinkies contain only 40% of the calcium that is in an adult mouse!

Hatchling snakes are at a time in their lives when nutrition is more important than it will ever be. Ironically, this is exactly the same time when people will be feeding them nutritionally inferior pinkies and fluffs. If you think about it, not only does it make sense that additional supplements are needed for young snakes like corn snakes, but it seems ridiculous NOT to supplement their diet in the early stages.