Insects have long been considered an alternative to traditional meat sources such as chicken, pig and cow. But pythons are new: Researchers are bringing these animals into play because they have high growth rates and require less food than other farm animals, explains the team led by Daniel Natusch from Macquarie University in Sydney in the specialist journal Scientific Reports. In times of climate crisis and increasingly scarce resources, the factory farming of such snakes is an option that has so far received little attention. “On some of the most important sustainability criteria, pythons perform better than any agricultural species studied to date,” says Natusch, chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Snake Specialist Group. They are a more efficient source of protein than poultry, pork, beef and salmon.
Reptile meat is not unlike chicken meat, the group writes. It contains a lot of protein and little saturated fatty acids. In mass farming, cold-blooded animals such as fish and insects are much more energy efficient than warm-blooded animals such as cattle or poultry. Snake meat is popular in some Asian countries where reptiles are traditionally eaten, but so far the industry is small.
The researchers examined the growth rates of 4,601 reticulated pythons (Malayopython reticulatus) and dark tiger pythons (Python bivittatus) in two snake farms in Thailand and Vietnam. The animals quickly gained weight, up to 46 grams per day. The increase in females was higher than in males. The best indication of later body size was the amount of food consumed in the first two months of life.
About 80 percent of a Python could be used
Animals of both species could weigh up to 100 kilograms, according to the study. Females become sexually mature within three years and can produce up to 100 eggs per year for 20 years or longer. “They are therefore well suited for commercial production,” the researchers are convinced.
The pythons on the farms were fed weekly with protein-rich food from the region such as wild-caught rodents and fish meal. After a year the snakes were killed. For comparison: According to the Federal Information Center for Agriculture (BZL), a pig needs around five to six months to be ready for slaughter, and a chicken for fattening takes four to six weeks.
In 58 tiger pythons, the research team tested various combinations of protein sources such as chicken and pig offal, rodents caught in rice fields and fish meal. On average, one gram of python meat was produced for every 4.1 grams of food consumed, with around 80 percent of the snake’s body being used. This is more efficient than other farm animals, they say: “In terms of food and protein utilization, pythons outperform all farm animal species that have been studied to date.” During fasting periods of up to 127 days, the snakes also lost very little weight. “For example, five six-month-old pythons went four months without food (about 45 percent of their lives) and lost only 30 to 70 g (2.7 to 5.4 percent of their pre-fasting body mass) during that time.” Inconsistent feeding is therefore not a problem.
According to Natusch’s team, these results suggest that commercial python farming could be a sustainable option for food production and a complement to existing livestock farming. To do this, it is important to find the most effective and animal-friendly methods. Examining such alternatives is all the more important as conventional livestock farming is reaching its limits in the wake of population growth, infectious diseases, dwindling natural resources and the climate crisis, say the researchers. Twelve percent of the world’s population is undernourished, and in low-income countries, protein deficiency affects the productivity of the workforce.
Aquaculture and insect farming have already recorded rapid growth rates, and such a development is also conceivable for snake farms in tropical countries. Mass farming of such reptiles requires little land and fresh water, and protein waste from other industries can also be used. Pathogens that are potentially dangerous to humans are far less of a problem with snakes than with poultry or pigs.
“The problems range from species protection to keeping conditions”
“Commercial production of pythons is still in its infancy and farms receive minimal scientific support or optimization through official agricultural development channels,” concludes Natusch’s group. Even in its current simple form, python farming appears to offer benefits for the sustainability and resilience of food systems.
Stefan Ziegler from the WWF environmental foundation sees potential for python farms. “Certainly a positive point is that pythons are extremely good at consuming food and require relatively little food per kilogram of body mass gained.” However, the study hardly addresses the threat to wild populations. There are reasons to assume that such snake farms would conceal wild catches. The dark tiger python, for example, is listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List.
“We also know from practice that the small mammal and amphibian fauna in the vicinity of snake farms is often completely impoverished because these species end up in the farms as food,” explains Ziegler. “Such systems always work quite well in theory, but the practical implementation, with the problems of a lack of control and documentation requirements, always looks different.”
The biologist Manfred Niekisch, former director of the Frankfurt Zoo, also explains: “Even the highly praised Asian animal farms often didn’t convince me. The problems range from species protection to the conditions in which they are kept.” A python certainly has lower demands than mammals or chickens and does not need a large enclosure area, but at least a pool of water and the opportunity to hide. In both Thailand and Vietnam, pythons are kept in enclosures in semi-open warehouses, the study said. The spatial requirements are low because the animals, as ambush hunters, move little and can be kept in large numbers in an enclosure. The stocking density of the two farms examined was around 15 kilograms of snakes per square meter.
A plant-based diet would be more sustainable than snake meat
It is unlikely that the animals are stressed out by living with several others in a small space, says Niekisch. “Pythons are not territorial.” However, the biologist is critical of the care of carnivores: “In the zoo, the snakes also get dead animals, but not chopped up remains.” In the event of expanded factory farming in Asian countries, the need for rodents and other sources of meat will be great. It cannot be ruled out that dogs and cats end up in the food. Fish, on the other hand, is not on the menu for most pythons, so fishmeal is an unnatural feed. In any case, overfishing of the seas is already an immense problem that should not be increased. Ultimately, it’s about a carnivore – and with higher use, the resource balance results in less usable energy for human nutrition. A plant-based diet would be more sustainable: “Sales are generally better with plant-based food.”
Niekisch sees another potential problem in the fact that snakes that are not native to the respective region can escape from the farms. The example of the dark tiger python, which is one of the largest snakes in the world with a length of over five meters, shows what consequences this can have: Originally native to Southeast Asia, the species spread through animals released from private keeping in the Everglades in Florida . According to official estimates, hundreds of thousands of pythons now live there and threaten the local fauna. Hunters now receive bonuses for animals they kill. Very long specimens are always tracked down, says Niekisch. His conclusion: “More animal welfare certainly makes sense, but whether pythons are a good alternative is doubtful.”