Does any one know why BP's sometimes will only eat mice in t

[derfpimp66]

Does any one know why BP's sometimes will only eat mice in the winter.

[JamminJonah]

I don't know anything about that but I have a similar question - do mice really contain more calcium than rats? Which is better to feed?

[JLC]

I've heard that rats are supposedly more nutritious than mice....I've never heard that mice have more calcium.

Eventually, you'll want to be feeding your bp rats because they're bigger. You can feed one proper sized rat...or a handful of mice. Just makes more sense to feed one item at a time, if you can. Many bp owners will move their snakes onto rats as soon as possible. But some stick with mice. It's really up to you...and your snake, which can often be finicky beyond our understanding.

Does any one know why BP's sometimes will only eat mice in the winter.

I don't know. It's not uncommon for bp's to go completely off food in the winter. Maybe some choose a smaller meal for similar reasons that some choose to fast completely. Could be that seasonally cooler temps make digestion potentially more difficult, so they will either not eat, or eat something smaller than normal.

[Marla]

There was actually a scientific study done and there's not a nutritional advantage to feeding one over the other. However, adults are more nutritious than pinkies, which are mostly fat, and the nuritional value (protein and calcium, mostly) improves gradually as they go through their life cycle. Pinkies are advantageous if you're trying to fatten up a bp for breeding, but you don't want to feed just rat pinkies because of the lack of nutrition. The advantage to feeding rats over mice is that some bp's are reluctant to take more than one prey item and you can feed a full meal in one shot for those. Other than that, you can keep feeding mice forever, as long as the bp is getting enough to eat.

[daftperception]

they don't eat during the winter because its breeding season this mainly affects adult males Ive never heard of them feeding only on mice during the winter it could be because they become picky eaters during the winter months and will only eat smaller pray or different pray.

[Mike]

theres a sticky about the nutriton of various prey items in the feeder forum. look for the posts with links to such documents under that sticky.

[beaglegod]

quote:
do mice really contain more calcium than rats?
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No, mice do not contain more calcium than rats, but adult rodents typicaly contain more calcium and other nutrients than pinkies or fuzzies. Thats why some breeders recommend feeding adult mice to growing BPs as apposed to rat pinkies or pups, since growing bones need calcium, however some breeders also alternate between adult mice and rat pups until the snake can be switched over to small rats only.

[JLC]

I could be wrong, but I think maybe the truer statement would be that adult mice contain more calcium than baby rats. Because the adult mouse's bones are fully matured, whereas the rat's are still soft. I can't imagine why a comparable aged mouse would have more calcium than a much larger rat.

[beaglegod]

Yes Judy, thats basicaly what I meant,
adult anything=calcium
baby anything=less calcium higher fat content

[JLC]

Sheesh...I'm dense today! I'm sorry. LOL I don't know why the bulk of your post was invisible to me. I thought you were asking the question and totally did not see that you had already answered it.