Switching from mouse hoppers to 21 day old rat?

I posted a thread a couple days ago about the alleged "rat hopper" that I purchased at a pet store, because I'm moving my little guy up on the prey sizes (I had a huge surplus of mouse hoppers and he was eating like 3 a week so I could get rid of them).

I didn't know that rat hoppers existed, because rats don't tend to hop like mice do. Anyways, did some research and realized that all the places in my area call them rat hoppers, but on one pet store's site they also referred to them as 21 days old, so that's what I'm assuming a "rat hopper" is.

My question is would it be acceptable to just offer him the rat right away or should I do something like bring his prey size up gradually?

3 weeks old rat are weaned rats which would be a HUGE size difference with a hopper mouse.

If you go from hopper mouse your next step up would be small adult mouse or adult mouse or small rat pup to rat pup.

Though my advice would be to stay with a similar size since your attempt is too switch than after a few successful meals upgrade the size.

Switching can be tricky and offering the same size might help with the transition.

Now here are some size ref for you

Those are rat fuzzies 10 days old on the large side they can be larger than hopper

http://stewartreptiles.com/wordpress...ies_10days.jpg

Those are rat pup similar to adult mice to slightly larger at that stage they are 2 weeks old.

http://stewartreptiles.com/wordpress...nursingrat.jpg

Okay, well then maybe it isn't 21 days old. I'd say they're about the size of an adult mouse...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by lexxielightning

Okay, well then maybe it isn't 21 days old. I'd say they're about the size of an adult mouse...

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Rat pups are the equivalent of adult mice :gj: