A little worried with switching to rats

Hi All,

i have had my BP now for 6 months. for the last 3 months i have been feeding her 1 live adult mouse every 7 days (every monday) which usually weighed in at about 20-21 grams. she has never refused a meal and even has eaten through all her sheds. at her last weigh in, which i did last monday (before feeding her) she was at 540 grams. today i decided i will increase the prey size as in the most recent feedings she looks like if she stayed hungry. it seems the general consensus from reading multiple posts on this forum and many others is that prey size should be 10-15% the weight of the snake. the prey i purchased is a "small rat" which weighs about 31 grams (although it looks big to me). since this is the first rat meal i will be feeding her, would this be an appropriate feeder size to start the switch to rats?

as always any input is greatly appreciated.

Here is a quick chart of approximate sizes :)

MICE

Sm. Pink 1-2 grams
Lg. Pink 2-4 grams
Peach Fuzz 4-6 grams
Fuzzies 5-8 grams
Hoppers 8-12 grams
Sm. Mice 11-16 grams
Med. Mice 15-24 grams
Lg. Mice 24-28 grams
XLg. Mice 30 grams+

Rats:
Rat Sm. Pink 3-8 grams
Rat Lg. Pink 5-12 grams
Rat Fuzzies 10-20 grams
Rat Pup 20-30 grams
Rat Wean 30-45 grams
Rat Sm. 40-80 grams
Rat Med. 80-150 grams
Rat Lg. 140-200 grams
Rat XLg. 190-250 grams

Hope this helps :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by daleeso

Hi All,

i have had my BP now for 6 months. for the last 3 months i have been feeding her 1 live adult mouse every 7 days (every monday) which usually weighed in at about 20-21 grams. she has never refused a meal and even has eaten through all her sheds. at her last weigh in, which i did last monday (before feeding her) she was at 540 grams. today i decided i will increase the prey size as in the most recent feedings she looks like if she stayed hungry. it seems the general consensus from reading multiple posts on this forum and many others is that prey size should be 10-15% the weight of the snake. the prey i purchased is a "small rat" which weighs about 31 grams (although it looks big to me). since this is the first rat meal i will be feeding her, would this be an appropriate feeder size to start the switch to rats?

as always any input is greatly appreciated.

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Yeah, you're underfeeding her. She should be fed meals in the 54-81g range (those weights equal 10-15% of 540g). 20-21g mice are far too small and so is a 31g rat. Since you have the rat already, give it to her. She will absolutely no problem eating it. I highly recommend you up her prey size considerably.

Hope the switch to rats goes well! That's a good size to start with since it might not be as intimidating but you can still go a bit bigger. If she doesn't want to make the switch you can always feed her multiple mice at each feeding time or just wait her out. Best of luck :).

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I just switched my 0.1 spider to 30-40g rats from adult mice. she had no issues. I will be going up 5+ grams next feeding. good luck!! :-)

My boy wouldn't go for the small rats to save my life. So, i just chalked him up as a mouser. This went on for about a month, refusing the small rats but zombie dance a large mouse and he'd nail it. I finally ended up leaving a small rat in over night and I guess he didn't like the lack of space in his tub, so he ate it haha.


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