# chicken necks?



## Mick666 (Sep 11, 2018)

I've heard that some people feed chicken necks to pythons. Is this a good idea or not? Has anyone here tried it? if it works, it could be a cheap way to feed them. But I don't know if it would be good for them. They eat birds in the wild so maybe it's ok. Maybe it's good because they get a bit of variety in their diet. What do you guys think?


----------



## Pauls_Pythons (Sep 11, 2018)

Yes it is a food source that is utilised in the hobby.
Not something I do.
While chicken necks can provide a source of nutrients Im personally not convinced it is a suitable replacement for complete food items but could be used as an occasional food item.


----------



## Mick666 (Sep 11, 2018)

I was thinking of giving my breeders some, (as well as rats) to get them back into shape a little bit sooner after they lay. I don't think I'd do it all year, just till they tone up a bit. I think I might weigh them and give half rats and the other half rats and chicken necks and see how they go.


----------



## Yellowtail (Sep 11, 2018)

I know some people do it but snakes are pure carnivores that have evolved to source their entire nutritional requirements, including vitamins, minerals etc from consuming whole live animals. A lot of their requirements come from the internal organs of the prey animal and the skin, fur, feathers provide the necessary roughage for the food to move down the digestive tract. Chicken necks may be useful short term if nothing else is available but to save money the best way is to breed your own rodents.


----------



## Mick666 (Sep 11, 2018)

I already have two really good rodent suppliers close by, so i can get rats year round. but i was thinking it would be a cheap source of extra protein to boost them after breeding. I know in the wild they eat birds, but they don't skin them and chop them up, so it definitely wouldn't be a replacement. Is it worth looking into or should I not bother? 

Also, is just giving them rats ok? would they benefit from getting a variety other items like whole birds, or rabbits? or do rats have everything they need?


----------



## Yellowtail (Sep 11, 2018)

In theory rats that are healthy and fed a good diet are all they need but rats bred in lab cages on a pellet diet (often cheap low protein pellets without the right nutrients) get almost no exercise and as large adults can carry a lot of fat and are a lot different from the lean natural diet wild animals have evolved to consume. Birds are a good variation but cage bred quail can carry as much fat as cage bred rats and day old chicks are to be avoided, rabbits are good for large pythons. I am experimenting with "free range rats", that is growing the weaned rats in large enclosures and aviaries with multiple ever-changing feed stations so they get a lot of exercise, problem is how to do it without creating a cleaning problem and the cages have to be indoors for temperature control and to isolate them from wild animal contact, diseases etc. This would not be viable commercially but may be a better diet for my own snakes.


----------



## cris (Sep 11, 2018)

Have a quick search plenty of information in older threads. My opinion is they are fine as part of the diet for most reptiles that eat vertebrates. Feeding only rats is fine too.


----------



## Southernserpent (Sep 11, 2018)

I have never heard about avoiding day old chickens. I have been using them as a supplementary feed item the snakes seam to love them. What is the reason to avoid?


----------



## Sdaji (Sep 11, 2018)

People often say snakes evolved eating whole prey, so they presumably require all the goodies from the various organs, etc.

I used to assume the same thing, but I never believe stuff without evidence, so I experimented by raising a few snakes on meat, skin and bone (no other organs). They were started on this diet from birth and I expected them to show some issues at some stage, and I'd then start giving them whole prey. To my surprise, they grew into healthy adults without ever eating a whole prey item, no different from their siblings which were fed a normal diet. There is no doubt that their macronutrients can be supplied with a diet of skin, bone and meat, but it seems this diet is also sufficient to meet their micronutrient requirements.

I keep hearing the strange myth (both in the context of humans and snakes) about dietary fat being the big bad thing to avoid. As long as all your micronutrients and macronutrients are in adequate supply, the only thing you need to worry about is total caloric intake. Humans have three basic macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrate), snakes basically only eat two (fat and protein). As long as they're getting enough protein, which is always going to be the case unless you're literally feeding them vegetables or something insane, it doesn't matter where the excess calories come from, whether fat or protein. The only important thing is not to give them too many (or too few) calories. If they are getting overweight, yes, feed them less, but don't stress over the amount of fat, just the total number of calories. That is, just don't feed them too much stuff.

This is the same with humans incidentally. As long as you're getting a sufficient quantity of the essential nutrients, it basically doesn't matter whether the excess (which will be burned for energy) is fat, carbohydrate or protein. It's actually not quite that simple, but unprocessed fats are not the bad option anyway (processed carbohydrates are worst, and carbohydrate is worse than fat). It's no surprise that since the diet myths are so different from the facts, we see so many fat people waddling around.


----------



## Yellowtail (Sep 11, 2018)

If I replaced my balanced diet that includes lean meat, lots of fruit and veg and a lot of fish with the same caloric equivalent of say Big Macs for the next 10 years would I be just as healthy?
Pythons may grow just the same regardless of the type of protein and fat content they consume but how healthy will their liver, kidneys and heart be after 10 years? They evolved over millions of years feeding on low fat native prey.
My black cockatoos could survive on sunflower seeds and some owners do just that and the birds are clearly not healthy or happy. Mine get a regular diet of almonds, walnuts, pecans, sprouted seeds and fresh banksia cones and they absolutely glow with good health.


----------



## Mick666 (Sep 12, 2018)

Sdaji said:


> This is the same with humans incidentally. As long as you're getting a sufficient quantity of the essential nutrients, it basically doesn't matter whether the excess (which will be burned for energy) is fat, carbohydrate or protein. It's actually not quite that simple, but unprocessed fats are not the bad option anyway (processed carbohydrates are worst, and carbohydrate is worse than fat). It's no surprise that since the diet myths are so different from the facts, we see so many fat people waddling around.



Funny you mention this. I am currently on the keyto diet. Ever since I have excluded carbs and increased protein and healthy fats I've lost around 20 - 30kg since July. I've struggled with weight forever and i can't believe how easy it is to lose weight with this new understanding of how we access our fat stores.


----------



## Sdaji (Sep 12, 2018)

Yellowtail said:


> If I replaced my balanced diet that includes lean meat, lots of fruit and veg and a lot of fish with the same caloric equivalent of say Big Macs for the next 10 years would I be just as healthy?
> Pythons may grow just the same regardless of the type of protein and fat content they consume but how healthy will their liver, kidneys and heart be after 10 years? They evolved over millions of years feeding on low fat native prey.
> My black cockatoos could survive on sunflower seeds and some owners do just that and the birds are clearly not healthy or happy. Mine get a regular diet of almonds, walnuts, pecans, sprouted seeds and fresh banksia cones and they absolutely glow with good health.



You are using a strange strawman argument. I did not say anything remotely like a diet of Big Macs being similar to a healthy diet. Just in case someone was tempted to say something so ridiculous I pointed out several ways in which a healthy diet was important. I pointed out the micronutrient importance, which obviously is massively different compared to Big Macs and a healthy diet, and even though it is not relevant to snakes, just in case someone was tempted to make an irrelevant argument, I pointed out that processing is an issue for humans. Perhaps it is worth asking if you know what micronutrients are, what macronutrients are, what the issues with food processing are?

You're correct that perhaps after many years on an exclusive diet of meat, skin and bones there may be some issue, but I can absolutely guarantee that if you were to raise a human from weaning on a diet of McDonald's it would not be healthy when it became an adult. There would be dramatic differences when comparing humans raised from weaning to adult on healthy diets vs nothing but Big Macs. The fact that all the snakes I raised on the experimental diet grew and were in equal health, vigour and condition at maturity (actually they were better, but the difference was not statistically significant) shows there is no evidence to say it is any worse. This doesn't prove it isn't better or worse, but we have zero demonstrable evidence that it is worse, only speculation. If you want to use your McDonald's analogy (I wouldn't make the analogy myself, but to whatever extent it works, here we go), feeding a snake a skin-on chicken neck is much better for a snake than McDonald's is for a human.

I'm certainly not telling anyone what to do or saying a lifelong diet of alternative feed items is as good as whole prey. I really don't know. It may be the same, better or worse, but I'm sharing the results of my own study which to my knowledge was more extensive than anyone else has ever done, which is why I did it, and there is no evidence that there is any problem. You are purely speculating. You have zero evidence of anything, just a hypothesis. It's a reasonable hypothesis, but there is zero evidence for it an significant evidence against it.

Also keep in mind that what happens in nature is usually not optimal. Humans today have far better diets than our natural diets (even considering all the garbage we eat), which is one of the reasons we live longer than ever. If we choose to eat the healthiest possible diet available today it is far, far better than a natural diet. Meat hasn't changed much in the last few million years, but most of everything else we eat is completely different from anything natural. The fruit and vegetables you see in Coles and Woolies are radically different from anything found in nature, and most of them are nutritionally far superior. Our natural diet included a lot of semi poisonous and very difficult to digest foods. Many humans today would die and most would get sick if they immediately tried to convert to a genuinely natural diet. Natural is not best. Our natural diet included various poisons, tanins and non digestible fibrous plant material which we are simply better off without. We have the ability to change things to make them better than nature. It's entirely possible that by removing things such as faeces from the contents of the digestive systems of whole prey, there is a significant benefit to the snakes. Snake digestive and immune systems are forced to work extremely hard to overcome some of the digestive, toxicity and biohazard challenges presented by eating whole prey items. Most of these are eliminated when feeding a meat, skin and bone meal.

Obviously a diet of fat, meat and bone supplies all the macronutrients a snake requires. If there is a problem, it can only be a micronutrient issue. Which micronutrient do you think may be lacking if whole prey items are not used? Can you even name one and describe how a deficiency in it may affect a snake?
[doublepost=1536735957,1536735093][/doublepost]


Mick666 said:


> Funny you mention this. I am currently on the keyto diet. Ever since I have excluded carbs and increased protein and healthy fats I've lost around 20 - 30kg since July. I've struggled with weight forever and i can't believe how easy it is to lose weight with this new understanding of how we access our fat stores.



The ketogenic diet works on a different principle. It can work, and you're living proof, but you're still working on a calories in:calories burned ratio principle. It's pretty controversial and has many critics, I'm not convinced it's a good thing to do, but it's very interesting and certainly can be an effective way to lose body fat in the short term. I love that many people do it and serve as walking experiments providing empirical data  My main question over it being a good idea is that since it's a fairly extreme thing for your body to do it's not healthy long term lifestyle option, and while I've seen plenty of people use it effectively they generally don't seem to have lasting effects once the ketogenic diet is stopped (I have seen exceptions). It's probably a good option for people who know how to make the transition from couch potato to ketogenic fat burner to healthy long term lifestyle, but most people can't do the second transition. 

A HUGE congratulations on 20-30kg in under 3 months! That's a spectacular effort! Best of luck keeping it off, which is the real challenge, but you're clearly one of the extreme examples of people willing to put in the effort to understand what is required and then sticking to it, which puts you right up in a top percentage of people in terms of motivation and discipline, so I think you probably will. People who achieve results like those are really inspirational!


----------



## GBWhite (Sep 12, 2018)

Hi John,

You've got me interested and if it's okay I'd like to know more about you using chicken necks (and/or meat, skin & bone) as the sole diet to raise snakes. Did you document it? If so...Is there anyway to access the info? If not...What species did you use? How many of each species did you use? What type of meat, bone and skin did you use? What method did you use as a control measure (ie; alternate food & frequency)? You say from birth but at what exact age did you start? How long did the experiment go for? How often, how much & what did you feed them at each stage of their development? How long did it take for them to reach maturity? Did you observe any difference in fecal matter? Did you attempt to bread them at maturity? If so...What was the outcome? What method did you use to confirm they progressed and maintained their health? What happened to the snakes at the end of the experiment? Where are the snakes now and have you followed up on their progress?

Cheers,

George.


----------



## cris (Sep 12, 2018)

Sdaji said:


> Also keep in mind that what happens in nature is usually not optimal. Humans today have far better diets than our natural diets (even considering all the garbage we eat), which is one of the reasons we live longer than ever. If we choose to eat the healthiest possible diet available today it is far, far better than a natural diet. !



A 'natural' diet can be far better than what many people eat these days. Depends on what you mean by natural, if you mean starving to death in a drought you are right. To me a natural diet is anything a human eats.



Mick666 said:


> Funny you mention this. I am currently on the keyto diet. Ever since I have excluded carbs and increased protein and healthy fats I've lost around 20 - 30kg since July. I've struggled with weight forever and i can't believe how easy it is to lose weight with this new understanding of how we access our fat stores.



Yeah, there are even people advocating a carnivore diet now. In my experience the ketone diet doesn't make you lose weight any faster than a 'normal' healthy diet (-5 kg every 10-20 days for me with either). There are some risks with any diet, but I think many people over complicate things.



Yellowtail said:


> If I replaced my balanced diet that includes lean meat, lots of fruit and veg and a lot of fish with the same caloric equivalent of say Big Macs for the next 10 years would I be just as healthy?



No, but if you just ate more chicken necks it wouldn't be an issue.


----------



## Sdaji (Sep 12, 2018)

I've never fed a chicken neck to a snake. In this experiment I mostly used rat pieces such as legs when they were younger, and sometimes other meats when they were older. At the time I was commercially producing and selling rats and mice and had plenty, and also critters to feed the guts and heads etc to.

No, I didn't formally document it. It wasn't part of a study at an institution (incidentally, I was working at a medical research lab during some of the time I was doing it). Most of the snakes were Death Adders, also a small number of Children's Pythons. I think I did mention it on APS while I was still doing it.

As I said, I started from their birth. They were raised to adults without ever eating anything other than muscle, skin and bone.

I stopped when they were full size, around two years of age. I kept the data in exercise books and wouldn't be typing that huge amount of data out even if that stack of exercise books was in front of me right now.

As I said, control snakes were siblings fed normal diets. At the time I had over a hundred Death Adders in my collection, and a fair number of Children's Pythons. I usually breed Death Adders and Antaresia at about 20 months, with babies hatchling/born when their parents are about 2 years old. I bred a couple of the female adders, no surprises.

No idea where they are now, I lost track of the last of them about 6 years ago.
[doublepost=1536758819,1536758416][/doublepost]


cris said:


> A 'natural' diet can be far better than what many people eat these days. Depends on what you mean by natural, if you mean starving to death in a drought you are right. To me a natural diet is anything a human eats.



This definition makes the word 'natural' meaningless and is obviously silly. By natural I mean foods typically consumed by a typical person living before modern times, say, 20,000 years ago. What a typical, average human eats today is far better than what a typical, average human was eating 20,000 years ago. Alternatively, you could look at it in terms of what was available to a typical human 20,000 years ago and compare it with what is available today, in which case today is far, far, far superior to what we evolved with, especially in a country like Australia. 

If you don't like the term 'natural' or want to use it in a silly way, then consider that the best fruits and vegetables available today did not even exist 20,000 years ago. We have dramatically improved on what existed before we started creating anything. We have created plants which are much better for us than anything which occurred before humans created them. Today we have available a diet which is far superior to the diet we evolved eating. This is simpler and shorter to say if you are able to use the word 'natural' in the way virtually everyone else uses it.


----------



## Mick666 (Sep 13, 2018)

Sdaji said:


> The ketogenic diet works on a different principle. It can work, and you're living proof, but you're still working on a calories in:calories burned ratio principle. It's pretty controversial and has many critics, I'm not convinced it's a good thing to do, but it's very interesting and certainly can be an effective way to lose body fat in the short term. I love that many people do it and serve as walking experiments providing empirical data  My main question over it being a good idea is that since it's a fairly extreme thing for your body to do it's not healthy long term lifestyle option, and while I've seen plenty of people use it effectively they generally don't seem to have lasting effects once the ketogenic diet is stopped (I have seen exceptions). It's probably a good option for people who know how to make the transition from couch potato to ketogenic fat burner to healthy long term lifestyle, but most people can't do the second transition.
> 
> A HUGE congratulations on 20-30kg in under 3 months! That's a spectacular effort! Best of luck keeping it off, which is the real challenge, but you're clearly one of the extreme examples of people willing to put in the effort to understand what is required and then sticking to it, which puts you right up in a top percentage of people in terms of motivation and discipline, so I think you probably will. People who achieve results like those are really inspirational!



To be honest, it took almost no effort. I feel like i've cheated the system or something. because back in the day I was a fighter and trained my ass off with way slower results. it can't be sustained forever, but the great thing i've seen so far is that you can turn it on and off. I'm lucky that my friend that has got me onto this diet has researched the hell out of it because of her partners illness. and she has lost 40kg in a very short time and looks amazing. I think i will be able to keep my weight stable now that I have an idea on what to do. I think a good start has been not drinking three litres of milk every night. lol. and I won't be going back to sugar any time soon. Plus I've always consumed a ton of carbs, that has also stopped. anyway it seems to be working for me so far. hopefully i can keep the weight off, and lose another twenty or so kg.


----------



## cris (Sep 13, 2018)

Sdaji said:


> Today we have available a diet which is far superior to the diet we evolved eating. This is simpler and shorter to say if you are able to use the word 'natural' in the way virtually everyone else uses it.



Yes, a better diet is available in theory, but most people don't bother or are unable to access it, which is the same problem as 20,000 years ago. I agree that places like Australia only had very poor quality food plants as a general rule (Australian plants have had no influence on my evolution anyway). Many modern plants create as many problems as they solve. Their primary benefits are the ease of producing more energy, better taste and more profit rather than being healthier food.

If you ignore the detrimental effects of food shortage I would disagree that a modern diet is superior to a 'natural' one and believe the opposite. While these things are only starting to be reasonably well understood, there are many benefits of a more 'natural' diet compared to a standard modern diet. Which ties into the subject of the thread. It is reasonable to assume an imitated natural diet is a better bet than a less natural, unproven diet. That doesn't mean there is not a much better diet possible though.
[doublepost=1536808289,1536799996][/doublepost]For some reason this came up as a suggested video...


----------



## Sdaji (Sep 13, 2018)

Mick666 said:


> To be honest, it took almost no effort. I feel like i've cheated the system or something. because back in the day I was a fighter and trained my ass off with way slower results. it can't be sustained forever, but the great thing i've seen so far is that you can turn it on and off. I'm lucky that my friend that has got me onto this diet has researched the hell out of it because of her partners illness. and she has lost 40kg in a very short time and looks amazing. I think i will be able to keep my weight stable now that I have an idea on what to do. I think a good start has been not drinking three litres of milk every night. lol. and I won't be going back to sugar any time soon. Plus I've always consumed a ton of carbs, that has also stopped. anyway it seems to be working for me so far. hopefully i can keep the weight off, and lose another twenty or so kg.



Wow! Yep, three litres of milk per night is definitely going to help you put on body fat, and ideally you shouldn't eat any refined sugar at all. Without literally eating poison, you can't eat anything too much worse than refined sugar. I have friends who weigh less than the weight your friend's partner lost and you plan to lose! My own circumstances have changed radically over the last 10 years or so, especially spending years in various different countries with different lifestyles and diets, and I've varied from about 77kg to about 107kg (I'm 191cm so something around 85-90kg is good for me), bouncing up and down many times for many different reasons, some good, some bad, some within my control and some not. Along with different hair styles I've looked like several completely different people over the last 5 years. Pretty funny.

It's really great to hear stories from people like you who show that when people put the time into learning how to do it and apply the necessary discipline, results follow. And yep, it's entirely possible to lose weight without putting effort into exercise. So many people bust themselves exercising but don't count calories and simply compensate for the calorie usage through increased consumption and don't understand how they can be putting in so much work but getting no weight results. Exercise is great for your health but not terribly effective for weight loss and not at all unless you manage your diet. You've simply taken the easy option and are enjoying the easy results! It's a wonder most people don't do it. And you've backed up what I said about the ridiculous myth of avoiding fat if you want to lose weight. Being on a ketogenic diet I'm sure you've enjoyed gobbling down heaps of very fatty foods while watching your body fat melting away. I love contrasting what people in Australia say about dietary fat being the devil, while walking around in Australia seeing all these lard balls walking around, then coming to Asia and walking around seeing all these stick thin tight-bodied Asian girls and well toned, lean men all gobbling down pig fat! Haha, it's great! Unfortunately though, western diet myths and increasing western food influence, especially sugary drinks, desserts and confectionery are altering Asia, and in some regions I see far more fatties now than I did a few years ago. Just in the last 3-4 years there has been a very big difference in the more western influenced areas, especially the big cities. It's astonishing that most western people actually get very angry when given the exact easy methods which do work, and prefer to believe the myths, even though they've already tried them and failed. Most people really don't seem to like actual evidence.

Cris: I disagree but it it's off topic and it seems we'd just be going around in a circular argument if we continued for long. If you think your natural diet (the diet available to your ancestors 20,000 years ago) was anywhere near as good as what's available to you today, try surviving in a European forest for a year (you most likely wouldn't survive that long anyway), and see how desperate you are to come back to Woolies. Even with modern tools allowing you to harvest as much as you could find in a European forest, you'd struggle to put together anything resembling a healthy diet. You're right, humans naturally ate a lot of meat in most parts of the world. The irrational bleating vegans tell us all sorts of lies and nonsense, but the reality is, our digestive systems are nothing like any herbivore and almost identical to a dog, and very similar to a typical bear. However, meat alone isn't a healthy diet for a Grizzly Bear or Human.

Considering the fact that we have everything available to us now which we did 20,000 years ago, plus many many times more options, you're clearly being irrational when you have any doubt of the fact that we have the opportunity for a better diet today than we did 20,000 years ago. Some of the foods commonly eaten 20,000 years ago were literally borderline poisonous and indigestible. Obviously, creating cultivars which have reduced levels of poisons, tanins, etc, makes them superior. Obviously (screamingly obviously) the average human today has a much greater access to foods than did people 20,000 years ago. There are very few people alive today who don't have better access to foods than people living in the same place 20,000 years ago had. I wasn't even thinking anyone would question or argue about it, I was just stating it as a fact, and it's an obvious one.


----------



## cris (Sep 13, 2018)

Sdaji said:


> Cris: I disagree but it it's off topic and it seems we'd just be going around in a circular argument if we continued for long. If you think your natural diet (the diet available to your ancestors 20,000 years ago) was anywhere near as good as what's available to you today, try surviving in a European forest for a year (you most likely wouldn't survive that long anyway), and see how desperate you are to come back to Woolies. Even with modern tools allowing you to harvest as much as you could find in a European forest



I think we are talking past each other a bit and it is a very complex topic, but it does relate to the topic indirectly. I was also not intending to endorse a carnivorous diet, just pointing out that it is a thing now.

I would gladly except you time machine challenge too.


----------



## Southernserpent (Sep 13, 2018)

Keto, carnivore, vegan or vegatarian. The thing they all have in common is that most people on these diet options usually reduce processed carbs, which is all pretty much the same as sugar for your body. Humans evolved in many different environments with many different food sources and the way we respond to different food isnt the same. I'm sure snakes are similar and like people we can survive and do well on a diet of many different things as long as our energy requirements are met. But I think most people would agree feeding whole prey items most of the time is probly best for your snake. That is just my opinion though no scientific backing at all


----------



## cris (Sep 13, 2018)

Language warning



Standard diet for humans is pretty good... According to the scienticianologist.


----------



## Mick666 (Sep 14, 2018)

he did pretty much exactly what I'm doing. cocnut oil in my first coffee, fast till lunch, two small canns of tuna in olive oil, and a small piece of meat with green veggies at night. that's it. I've now started exercising too.


----------



## Bl69aze (Sep 14, 2018)

Mick666 said:


> he did pretty much exactly what I'm doing. cocnut oil in my first coffee, fast till lunch, two small canns of tuna in olive oil, and a small piece of meat with green veggies at night. that's it. I've now started exercising too.


That sounds horrible sir..

You poor thing


----------



## Mick666 (Sep 14, 2018)

I actually am loving it, it's just so easy. I use small protein bars and coffee to get me through if i get hungry. I can feel my energy levels improving everyday, my back pain has gone, but the best part is having women hit on me at gigs. lol. Not that I'm allowed to do anything about it, but it is a nice change.


----------



## danyjv (Sep 14, 2018)

Funny Keto diet has come up on this forum. I’m on my second full week of Keto and it’s great. Might sound hard or horrible but it’s not at all .my mind feels sharp and focussed and heaps of energy. I fast on Friday’s so no food all Friday then sat morning will be a high fat no carb breakfast . 



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Sdaji (Sep 15, 2018)

danyjv said:


> Funny Keto diet has come up on this forum. I’m on my second full week of Keto and it’s great. Might sound hard or horrible but it’s not at all .my mind feels sharp and focussed and heaps of energy. I fast on Friday’s so no food all Friday then sat morning will be a high fat no carb breakfast .
> 
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk



Interesting you say it's not hard or horrible. People doing it 10 years ago seemed to really struggle, but most people I talk to or hear from these days seem to be finding it easy to do and enjoy feeling better. I'm not at all sure what changed. Maybe the typically recommended method has been changed a bit, or perhaps something about the culture has changed.


----------



## Bl69aze (Sep 15, 2018)

Sdaji said:


> Interesting you say it's not hard or horrible. People doing it 10 years ago seemed to really struggle, but most people I talk to or hear from these days seem to be finding it easy to do and enjoy feeling better. I'm not at all sure what changed. Maybe the typically recommended method has been changed a bit, or perhaps something about the culture has changed.


The average home meal has gotten worse  or people eating too much fake stuff


----------



## Sdaji (Sep 15, 2018)

Bl69aze said:


> The average home meal has gotten worse  or people eating too much fake stuff



I haven't spent much of the last 5 years in Australia and am becoming a bit out of touch with typical day to day Australian household life. Even from here the fact that things are changing extremely quickly is obvious, so it doesn't surprise me that the diet is rapidly changing too. Until about 10 years ago I thought Australia was hands down the best place in the world to live (and it pretty much was), but the rapid changes since then made me leave, and since leaving everything I see about the path Australia is on keeps confirming what I was expecting to happen (not that most of it applies to food).

In terms of the keto diet, perhaps there are now just so many people on such terrible diets feeling terrible from them that when they go on the keto diet they feel a lot better because anything is better than the diet a lot of Australians are on. When I visit Australia these days I do cringe when thinking about the food and get so happy when I arrive back in what I think of as Food Heaven. Last night I had a bit of a weird fruit craving, really just felt like fruit for dinner, walked out into the street and bought a ridiculous pile of fresh cold fruit and got the lady selling it to cut it all up for me into a nice huge fruit platter. In Australia something like that would cost about $50-100 if you could even find someone to do it, but here it was about AU$3, and as a bonus it was all seasonal fresh local tropical fruit, just from the nearest vendor out on the street. I usually spend about AU1.50-3 on absolutely amazing meals freshly cooked using fresh ingredients. After becoming accustomed to eating like a king for trivial money it's painful to go back to Australia where even a mediochre diet costs a fortune, and to eat in Australia like I do elsewhere is prohibitively expensive.


----------



## cris (Sep 16, 2018)

I think the reason the keto diet works so well is it is reversing the anti-fat propaganda that many unfortunate people have been brainwashed to believe, fat is the most satisfying food IMO. Also you are eliminating lots of potentially bad foods that can have adverse effects in many people. From what I have read people who have trouble are usually just ignoring the need for more electrolytes, even the people in Ideocracy know you need electrolytes lol


----------



## GBWhite (Sep 17, 2018)

Just to divert back to original topic. This is a video of a Black Tailed Cribo (Drymarcho melanurus) aving a feed of chicken pieces. They are a non-venomous species from Central America.


----------



## cris (Sep 17, 2018)

GBWhite said:


> Just to divert back to original topic. This is a video of a Black Tailed Cribo (Drymarcho melanurus) aving a feed of chicken pieces. They are a non-venomous species from Central America.




Most snakes will eat this sort of thing, the main issue is that pythons (and others) will sometimes constrict and it makes it a bit messier than an animal with the skin on. It is much worse if you feed them mince or canned dog/cat food.


----------



## Sdaji (Sep 19, 2018)

cris said:


> I think the reason the keto diet works so well is it is reversing the anti-fat propaganda that many unfortunate people have been brainwashed to believe, fat is the most satisfying food IMO. Also you are eliminating lots of potentially bad foods that can have adverse effects in many people.



I think there's perhaps a bit of truth to that. People, particularly western but increasingly others, have been lied to and told fat is a bad thing. People also obviously have a completely warped concept of what food is and why we eat if we commonly see "calorie free" or "low calorie" being used as a reason to buy food! It's approximately as absurd as advertising something as 'empty filler' and implies people simply wish to eat food with a mentality of eating as much as possible for no purpose other than recreation, and if that's your mentality you need a radical rethink. Probably the single biggest reason we eat food is for the calories it contains. If you want something with zero calories I'm happy to sell you as much water as you like.

The entire diet situation is incredibly simple, so it's amazing so many people fail to grasp it. You could literally fit almost everything normal people need to know on one A4 page. You could literally put most of it into one paragraph.

Everyone who knows anything at all about food agrees people need something around 2,000 calories per day (it varies depending on age, sex, activity level, etc). We need a certain amount of protein, fat and carbohydrate. It doesn't take 2,000 calories to get enough of these as we need. To make up the remaining calories it doesn't matter too much whether they come from fat, protein or carbohydrate, but protein and fat are generally better. Also make sure you're getting enough micronutrients (do that before filling up your 2,000 calorie quota). Yes, it's fine to have 2,500 today and 1,500 tomorrow, or 500 today and 3,500 tomorrow, etc. No, you don't have to fanatically count them or know your exact daily quota. If you are putting on weight and you don't want to, eat less, and first cut out highly processed foods. If you are losing weight and you don't want to, eat more, and feel free to add any healthy food you choose. If you're stable and happy, keep doing what you're doing.


----------



## Mick666 (Sep 20, 2018)

I'm going to try the chicken necks tonight on my diamond pythons, just to see if they go for them. I'll get pics if I'm successful.


----------



## dragonlover1 (Sep 20, 2018)

I can't see the chicken neck as a problem if it is an added part of the diet,after all it is considered an adequate part of a lacies diet. 
It obviously has calcium as well as some other vital nutrients that are not included in meat only diets.


----------



## ronhalling (Oct 16, 2018)

We used to feed our big Intergrade girl chicken necks regularly (every 3rd feed ie rat-rat-necks-rats) with no ill effects whatsoever, in fact on neck week she used to smash the necks with more vigour than the rats, the only difference we ever found with rats V necks was on crap day the crap was more solid and less smell after the necks, the only down side i found was with necks you have to have an animal that will take multiples at feed time, our 7 kg Intergrade needed 4 necks to fill her up.
As far as diets go i am 199 kg and have tried every diet up to and including the russian stalag rotten cabbage soup diet and have found that without a good regime of exercise they are all next to useless, I have oxygen dependant COPD and chronic degenerative Polymyalgia Rheumatica along with a shopping list of other side problems which just about make exercise of any kind almost impossible. I did lose quite a bit of weight on the Ketogenic diet but without the required amount of exercise to keep it off it all came back, 1 day i will find a diet that i can do while i am asleep and all will be good.






*( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) -ronhalling-*


----------



## Mick666 (Oct 16, 2018)

I bought some chicken necks, but ended up giving them to my dog. I'm still going with the keyto diet, but I've added excercise in now too. I do cardio one day and core and strength the next. I used to train and fight as a kickboxer, and now I'm finally getting back into the right mind set to train. It's very addictive.


----------

