Those of you that keep egg-eating snakes (Dasypeltis scabra). What type eggs have you found the most success feeding your egg-eaters at each stage of their life? How do you source your eggs? Do any of you keep birds as well to produce eggs for your egg-eaters? Quail eggs aren’t an impossible find but I haven’t really seen canary or finch eggs too readily available.
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Join the Dasy group on FB, there are a few finch breeders that jump in now and then and make their eggs available.
Another alternative is to start a colony of crested geckos. Once they get rolling you will get a pair of eggs from each female about every 30 days and they are the right size for young Dasypeltis.
Sub-adult animals can eat button quail eggs. You need to find a breeder for those, or start your own colony. While I have not tried it I have been told that you can comfortably house a 1.3 in a 55g aquarium
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I’ll certainly look into that group! Thank you for the recommendation.
I was unaware that they would feed on crested gecko eggs (any reptile egg really) so that’s rather appealing. Any excuse for adding to the collection!
Good to know. I have seen button quail eggs readily available, and have also been reading into what it takes to keep them since I was on the egg-eater research rabbit hole.
Thanks again for the added info!
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I’ve been tempted to raise some button quails in an indoor grow tent setup. It’ll be awhile before I could be ready and I’ve even thought of having them in the garage. Not a fan of noisy things inside. Crested eggs are a good tip. Thanks
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Agreed about the crested gecko eggs- that’s really cool! I had thought (years back) that it was very difficult to find the right food to keep them, so I had crossed them off my mental list of possibilities. Can adults eat quail eggs? Is it true that the eggs you feed need to be fresh/unrefrigerated, or is that misinformation?
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If they cannot eat quail eggs then a ghost must been sneaking into my female’s tank for the past five years and eating the quail eggs I put in there LOL 
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That is blatant misinformation. I pick up a pack of quail eggs at the local international supermarket and toss it in the fridge. When you feed, you do need to let the egg warm up to room temp, but that just means you take the egg out in the morning and set it on top of the cage for most of the day and then place it in the cage in the evening (I prefer before lights out but depending on how flighty your animal is you can do it after)
The eggs do need to be “fresh” inasmuch as they cannot be rotten, but eggs keep in the fridge for months if needed (I go through a pack in less than a month though with all the different animals that I have that feed on eggs)
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I have been looking more and more into the crested gecko alternative to source small eggs for a small Dasy. In your experience when providing reptile eggs to your egg-eater, is it a task to get your snake to then begin taking bird eggs? Similarly to trying to get a snake that is accustomed to eating amphibians/reptiles switched over to rodents.
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I have not had to transition, all of mine have fed on bird eggs. But I know others that have and never reported issues. I have had one animal that seemed fixated on button quail eggs when she was more than large enough for Coturnix. Ended up putting a button and a Coturnix in together and after she ate the first one she was in feed mode and took the other.
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Good to know! If any problem transitioning arises, I can always take advantage of getting into feed mode to aid in the switch.
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just asking u can just go to the mall and buy some quail or other birds egg?
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If you can find bird breeders willing to ship, yes, this is a viable option
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If it becomes trendy to wear a quails egg on your collar maybe Hollister will start carrying them lol
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lol but do they eat unfertilized eggs?
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I have no clue. I just googled the species this morning after seeing the discussion. Very interesting.
*comment amended
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is this o joke or what 
Yes, they eat unfertilized eggs
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I mean here in Eu aren’t so difficult to find
I bought a pair of dasypeltis gansi a couple of years ago, and raised a clutch they had.
I was not able to get them to eat anything except bird eggs, period. They don’t go for reptile eggs. They don’t got for any soft leathery shell they can’t crack. I got a colony of mourning geckos, because the eggs they lay are small and hard shelled, but still no luck at all.
Finch eggs for the babies. I got them from finch breeders online, in my area, and from pet stores. They’ll eat multiple in one sitting, so you need a good steady supply, especially in their first year. After about 1 and a half years I have finally been able to transition the last of the clutch to button quail eggs and they aren’t interested unless I scratch the shells first.
My adult female (unfortunately now passed) was big enough to eat chicken eggs. My adult male was a lot smaller and a bit of a fussy eater, but he eats coturnix, button, cockatiel, or any small bird egg. I’ve noticed an obvious preference for eggs from tree nesting birds (thinner shells) or eggs that are scraped up if they are ground nesting (quail).
Babies can eat finch eggs right after hatching, even though they seem too big for a 3-4 gram snake lol. Button quail eggs are much too big for hatchlings.
Eggs can be fertile/infertile. They can even have started development as long as they aren’t rotting or are fully developed. Fertilized eggs that have maybe started development contain less avidin than infertile eggs. Avidin has anti-biotin properties that can cause a biotin deficiency in species that are fed eggs exclusively, but egg development uses up avidin and helps prevent that issue.
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Thank you for sharing your experience! Do you think that maybe your animals not going for the reptile eggs could be attributed to differences among the various Dasy species? I’ve seen most commonly in the trade scabra and gansi being available.
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I only have personal experience with d. gansi, but I believe it it the same across all the dasypeltis species, because they have all evolved to eat in the same way. They use specialized vertebrae in their neck to crack open the egg shells of bird eggs. I have yet to see any proof of any dasypeltis species being able to eat reptile eggs. There’s a lot of people parroting feeding gecko eggs, but these comments seem to be from people who don’t actually have experience or evidence of them actually eating them.
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