Mice vs Rats

I breed rats as feeders, but my collection has far exceeded what I can produce. I have many small Balls and Boas that are at the size they can eat full grown mice (30-50g) or weaned rats (roughly same size).

My question is, are any pros or cons for feeding rats vs mice. Mice seem to be cheaper when purchasing frozen feeders online, but if there is a benefit for feeding rats instead, I'd gladly pay the additional amount. Thanks in advance!

The only real benefit to feeding rats over mice is if your snake turns out to be a picky eater. Swapping from mice to rats later on could be difficult, and feeding 3 or 4 mice at a time would suck. Nutritionally they are essentially the same. I should add that for a boa I doubt it would matter what you give her, mine switches between live, ft, mice, rats, hamster....she pretty much eats anything. Just my BPs that i dont stray away from rats.

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Originally Posted by FkNdRk

The only real benefit to feeding rats over mice is if your snake turns out to be a picky eater. Swapping from mice to rats later on could be difficult, and feeding 3 or 4 mice at a time would suck. Nutritionally they are essentially the same. I should add that for a boa I doubt it would matter what you give her, mine switches between live, ft, mice, rats, hamster....she pretty much eats anything. Just my BPs that i dont stray away from rats.

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I agree. The biggest reason to stick with rats with BPs is simply because its hard to switch them. Boas are garbage disposals so you shouldn't have a problem there.

I have a mouser for a BP right now and I wish I could get her on rats. She should be eating 3 mice per feeding at the size I'm getting, but its hard to get her to eat consistently on that. It would sure be nice if she'd just take 1 rat each week.

But you could maybe go with mice with your really agressive feeders. Try a mouse one week then go back to a rat for a week or two. Then try a mouse again, then another rat. If the snake seems to switch back and forth ok, then just keep feeding mice and occasionally offer a rat to keep it interested in the other prey item. If all goes well, it should switch back to rats later on with no trouble.

The one downside to the boas is that they won't stay the size where they can eat just one adult mouse for very long. And feeding 2 mice is not so healthy for them at that point - they should get a young rat once they're big enough to take it because that will have more bone content (bone = calcium) which will aid with their growth.

Hope this helps! :gj:

Balls on rats tend to grow faster and larger than on mice.


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Gram per gram it's all the same the advantage when feeding rats is that once full grown you feed one prey item versus multiple if feeding mice.

While the nutritional value are different there is no study regarding nutritional requirement.

rats mice and a lot more nutritional info http://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.asp not that much difference nutritionally but as has been said better to feed one rat than multiple mice

I've also noticed that my baby balls grow faster on rats, but couldn't definitively tell you why. I suspect part of the reason is that when we eyeball the rodent, we're probably offering a mouse that is smaller than necessary. (A fuzzy rat may actually be a bit bigger than a hopper mouse, for example).

Also, baby ball pythons outgrow mice pretty rapidly, in far less than a year if they're well fed.

That said, I breed both, because baby balls also seem to start feeding more readily on mice, and mice are more prolific in a smaller area.

rats have a higher fat content than mice and you will see a noticeable growth rate between rats and mice, and as everyone has already stated its nice to only need to feed one prey item vs. 2+, i breed and feed asf's for my collection and i find a higher growth rate with them than norway rats as well, that and i have no picky feeder issues, and the snakes put more of the rat to use (they poop less) and an adult asf is a perfect meal for an adult ball, aslo mine will produce up to (on average) 20 babies every 21 days.