almost a year old....

my bp male will be one year in november. should he be eating small rats by now. we give him two mice every 5 days. i have suggested a rat but my girlfriend will not let me get one for him. i dont have a scale so i dont know his weight. but i do know that he is as long as an apple box. if not longer. any advice would be great. we are also afraid of the rat trying to fight back. is this common. i have heard about rats fighting back. thanks for all of your info

My guy is 6-7 mos old and he's one 2 adult mice per week and I'm going to move him up to 3 a week in about 3-4 weeks. My guess is maybe he should be eating something more. However my guy is on F/T so I'm not really sure about the rat fighting back.

i heard that f/t lose some nutrition value? is this true

I'm not really sure from what I've read on these forums F/T are better. However switching from live to F/T can be a pain. He was raised on F/T and has been a great eater. Everytime I move him up to a bigger mouse or larger quantity he never refuses. I believe if you try to refreeze a mouse after being thawed they lose nutrional value but I haven't run into that problem yet and if I do I'll just toss it.

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Originally Posted by mattramsfan

i heard that f/t lose some nutrition value? is this true

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Since no studies have been done (that I've ever seen or heard of) of the exact nutritional requirements of ball pythons...it would be impossible to say if what little nutritional change caused by freezing would be detrimental. On the other hand, thousands upon thousands of reptiles thrive on f/t animals and I've never once heard of a single case of poor nutrition due to f/t prey.

BP's can be difficult to switch from live to f/t...but that certainly isn't a sure thing. Mine switched over with no fuss at all. Let 'em get a little extra hungry and they took the f/t without hesitation.

both live mice and rats can do equal damage to a snake. if you feed live responsibly you greatly reduce that risk. if you feel that its time for your snake to be eating rats then make the switch.