Out of curiosity...

[ritual]

I was wondering if any breeders have noticed a correlation between clutch sizes and what the Bp eats, either mice or rats? Or is it more on the size of the female?

[Velrys]

Its has to do with the size of the female. I have seen a really tiny bit of evidence that makes me think that age is also a contributing factor but not enough to say so with any confidence.

Most owners I have talked to consider mice to be junk food, but it does not determine clutch size. Maybe the rate of animal growth is affected by food item.

[Eric Alan]

Most owners I have talked to consider mice to be junk food...

Not necessarily the case, nutritionally speaking. It's more of a case that a single mouse isn't a large enough prey item for a reasonably sized ball python. It takes at least three adult mice to equal one small rat, and double that to equal a medium rat. It simply doesn't make sense to start a ball python off on a food item that won't be the most appropriate choice for when it gets larger. This is only magnified by the quirkiness of their eating habits.

[Velrys]

http://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.asp

Some information in here that addresses this subject.

The average of domestic mice under 10g is 5.76 kcal/gram which beats out rat's 5.3kcal/gram under 10g. However after 10g rat's 5.55 kcal/gram wins over mouse's 5.25 kcal/gram. Since I'm not a big fan of getting BPs used to one animal then switching to another and because 10g is the pinky category of rats (what you would feed a hatchling BP, and the smallest possible rat you can get) there would never be any reason that feeding mice would be better than feeding rats.

[ritual]

Oh no I didn't want to spark another mouse vs rat debate, but just curious if anyone has noticed a difference, thank you 😁

[OhhWatALoser]

Genetics seem to play the biggest factor, Females that lay lots of eggs tend to make females that lay lots of eggs.

[Eric Alan]

Oh no I didn't want to spark another mouse vs rat debate, but just curious if anyone has noticed a difference, thank you 

Ha ha! It's not a debate when both parties agree with each other.

[ARBallMorphs]

Ha ha! It's not a debate when both parties agree with each other.

this is true,

and no i am not started a debate now but i have to say,

i just recently started to get some rats breeding and my snakes have been on mice cause it is easier for me where i live to get adult mice then small rats.

that being said it is realy hard to find adult rats to start a breeding group, all i could get where 1 adult rat female, 3 sub adult rat females and 1 sub adult rat male.

and that male being alot smaller then the 1 adult rat female i have isnt getting what he wants from that female....

so i am still stuck on feeding mice to most of my bp's

only my arange ghost get's rats atm as i have found a couple of rats that are about 80-90 grams.

[ARBallMorphs]

oh up-date,

i just did some cage cleaning and it seems the small male did get his way with the bigger female

[ritual]

Congrats on starting your colony