Mice vs. Rats

I was wondering what some of you thought about feeding either mice or rats to ball pythons. I keep both balls and gtps and feed them mice. I have heard when trying to get a juvie up to weight to feed them mice as opposed to rats. The point being your feeding an adult mouse instead of a younger rat and the older rodent has more nutrients in it. Any truth to that? If not, why feed rats instead of mice?

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Originally Posted by RobBasile

I was wondering what some of you thought about feeding either mice or rats to ball pythons. I keep both balls and gtps and feed them mice. I have heard when trying to get a juvie up to weight to feed them mice as opposed to rats. The point being your feeding an adult mouse instead of a younger rat and the older rodent has more nutrients in it. Any truth to that? If not, why feed rats instead of mice?

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i dont see an older rodent holding more nutrients. i would have to call that a load of bull, but either way.

rats are a more appropriate size for larger ball pythons.
if you feed mice it takes ALOT of mice to make up for the meal size.

I saw a chart somewhere with the fat contents of rodents and im pretty sure rats had a higher percentage. Plus your ball will use more energy killing multiple mice versus 1 rat.
+2 for rats right there