Evaluation of Nutritional and Health Status in Captive Eastern Indigo Snakes (Drymarchon couperi) in Response to Formulated Sausage Diet
Peyton R. Jackson, James E. Bogan, Ellen S. Dierenfeld, Zachary J. Loughman · 2024
Read Evaluation of Nutritional and Health Status in Captive Eastern Indigo Snakes (Drymarchon couperi) in Response to Formulated Sausage Diet by Peyton R. Jackson, James E. Bogan, Ellen S. Dierenfeld, Zachary J. Loughman (2024) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-11591334.txt.
Description
A sausage diet for captive indigo snakes is put to a year-long test by Peyton Jackson and co-authors in a 2024 study. The eastern indigo snake is federally threatened and now restricted to parts of Georgia and Florida. Captive breeding programs worry about overconditioning and nutrient imbalance, linked to egg-binding in first-time mothers. Diets of domestic prey differ nutritionally from the wild prey these snake-eating snakes evolved on.
Snakes ate whole laboratory prey, whole prey ground into sausage, or a sausage matched to nutrients measured in wild stomach contents. Blood counts, plasma chemistry, and nutrient levels were tracked over a year. The comparison judges whether a formulated diet can replace whole prey without harming health. Conservation breeders get feeding evidence.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Peyton R. Jackson, James E. Bogan, Ellen S. Dierenfeld, Zachary J. Loughman |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2024 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 29 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |