rats vs mice

I am new to keeping ball pythons.

I want to know if I were to start breeding feeder rodents for BPs, should I breed rats or mice, or both?

Are rats of any age too big for baby pythons? Do I need mice pinkies for baby BPs or will rat pinkies be small enough?

Thanks

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Originally Posted by RiversideSnakeman

I am new to keeping ball pythons.

I want to know if I were to start breeding feeder rodents for BPs, should I breed rats or mice, or both?

Are rats of any age too big for baby pythons? Do I need mice pinkies for baby BPs or will rat pinkies be small enough?

Thanks

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Baby BP are big enough to eat rat pinky with no problem. We feel it's best to get BP onto rat and keep them there. Once they get bigger it will take a few adult mice to equal one large rat. We have also found that rats are easier to keep and breed.

*Josh*

start them on rat pinks, and up the feeder size as your ball python gets bigger. Feed prey items around 1.5 times the width of the snake. Snakes can get hooked on mice, and start to prefer them instead of rats, and your snake will need rats as it gets bigger unless you want to feed it a few mice a week. Rats also have more protein and are just a better prey item

I would go with rats. I think you will find most people on here prefer to have their bps on rats. And even young bps can put down a rat pup. Sometimes if they are mice eaters, its hard to get them to switch over to rats I have heard from people too. Mine are garbage guts and eat what ever my feed supplier has on hand. We try to stick with rats and asf's, when ever possible.

Rats all the way!

I think the majority of people here will say that Rats are best for the obvious reason of being able to feed one rodent of good size as opposed to several smaller mice at one feeding to get the proper gram sized meal.

Now, in the end I think its going to depend on the individual snake. I have some that will take rats and then others who will absolutely refuse to take a rat and must be "served" mice - lol.

Most of mine are on f/t so it doesn't really make a difference for me if I have to thaw out three mice to equate to a good meal. But when it comes to having to keep live rodents from one feeding to the next - I actually prefer mice because at their largest size - most bp's can handle them whereas rats grow sooo fast and quickly become too large for most bp's unless your snakes are huge - thus I experienced alot of waste with keeping rats.

I have asked many times on this site about the nutritional content of mice and rats - I have been assured that it is perfectly fine to feed strictly mice just as long as you give each snake the proper number of mice to amount to the correct grams.

I breed all my own rodents and feed all rats right from hatchlings. Rats are way easier to breed for a few reasons. 1 is that rats are great moms and have no problem with nursing other litters as well as there own. 2 rats wont eat their young like mice will do. Rats also will bred longer if they are given a good diet. I feed my rats a mixture of mazuri rodent chow with powdered goat milk mixed in and i also mix in black oil sunflower seeds that really helps with coat. Healthy rats means healthy snake food. I used to do mice and asf when i did colubrids and asf are chewing little jokers and tear stuff up and it takes forever for them to grow. Mice tend to eat eachother and their young. Rats are by far super simple. I have almost 20 racks set up in the rat house with watering systems and they brred like crazy. You want to keep your temps in the 70s to ensure good reproduction