differences in nutritional value mice VS rats

[recycling goddess]

anyone have any nutritional info regarding rats VS mice? i'm seriously thinking about changing to rats.

i've been looking at everything which takes space in my home... put up some shelves to hold my tarantulas, another for my snakes... took down 7 fish tanks to free up some time and space! so now i'm looking at the three mice bins and thinking... do i really want mice bins in my home? couldn't i just buy them frozen and thaw them out?

with the price of diesel (and gas) i don't want to run back and forth and back and forth to the petstore every week...

so, if i'm going to order them frozen... perhaps i should change to rats?

obviously the rats would be for dexter and drake (ball and hoggie) - but i wonder if my cornsnakes could eventually change to rat pinkies etc as well?

i know i know... i'm saying so much here and i hope everyone is in the reading mood... cause i'm wondering... good decision or bad to switch to rats?

[Adam_Wysocki]

You can find the nutritional difference between mice and rats, but there has never been a study done covering the nutritional requirments of ball pythons.

Without that information any information about the nutritional value of either mice or rats is useless.

Feed your snakes what they will eat and what is most convenient for you to feed. Nothing else matters.

-adam

[recycling goddess]

what a good point... thanks adam. i never even thought about what they need... duh! LOL

[recycling goddess]

okay so what about this... is it better to feed two mice to a ball or one rat? is it harder for them to digest two prey items?

[Adam_Wysocki]

okay so what about this... is it better to feed two mice to a ball or one rat? is it harder for them to digest two prey items?

Absolutely not.

As to what's better? As long as your snake is eating, healthy, and not losing weight ... it's all about the same.

-adam

[JLC]

Same answer applies. There's been no studies that can show benefits or drawbacks to either method....so just go with what your snake will eat and what you can best provide.


I will say...if your snakes (ball in particular, I hear boas are less picky) have been eating live mice...it might be difficult to get them to switch to f/t rats. I would try to make one change at a time, if you want to go that route.

[recycling goddess]

okay... thanks so much - both of you.

i don't know what i'm going to do... after all, i do like that they seem to like eating live... so... we'll see. just wanted to be informed before i made the decision!!!