Changing food for one meal

Hi so I ordered a live rat fuzzy at ace, but they apparently didn't hear the rat part D; and didn't know what to order for me so they didn't order anything. If they can't get one today I would have to wait next week. My question is I would like to feed my BP something at least, could I do a mouse for just this one week? He wouldn't become addicted to mice and never eat rats again right?

I feed rat fuzzy or pups and when I dont have some that meet the size I hit the LLL by the house and grab jumbo mice. If they are hungry they will eat. Plain and simple. I dont know what the whole "only eat ASFs,Mice or gray blue hair long eared rats" is about. Dont feed them or drop one in there and if they are hungry, they will eat.

I have gone back and forth between rats and mice with some hatchlings and have never had any issues in the past. But with that being said, I have most definitely seen snakes that will only take ASF or mice and after seeing that, I will never switch back and forth. Sometimes I start the hatchlings with mice just to get them eager to eat, then switch to rats. But once they eat rats, I won't go back to mice anymore. I prefer rats and don't want to have to deal with mice PERIOD. I feel that most rat eating balls with gladly accept mice as a meal, but not all mouse eaters will takes rats. My suggestion is to just hold off, unless you're ok with the possibility of your snake becoming a mouser.

oh geez, I'll keep the advice in mind. I really would rather feed rats to my bp, it seems easier when they start to get bigger and need more food.

Anyway, they managed to get my order in last minute thank goodnessss. So I got my rat in the end.

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Originally Posted by blubudgie

oh geez, I'll keep the advice in mind. I really would rather feed rats to my bp, it seems easier when they start to get bigger and need more food.

Anyway, they managed to get my order in last minute thank goodnessss. So I got my rat in the end.

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If you are trying to keep the snake on rats just wait it out. I had a situation happen where my vendor was out of rats so I gave a girl of mine a mouse. Took me FOREVER to get her back on to rats. Plus when they are bigger you want to fed him/her ONE rat equal to body size not multiple mice. Its a pain.

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Originally Posted by CeeJay

If you are trying to keep the snake on rats just wait it out. I had a situation happen where my vendor was out of rats so I gave a girl of mine a mouse. Took me FOREVER to get her back on to rats. Plus when they are bigger you want to fed him/her ONE rat equal to body size not multiple mice. Its a pain.

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Okay so it happened again, last time they managed to get a rat to me on time, but this time for some reason their shipment never came in.
My only other option is frozen mice at Petco, so you guys think I should just skip a meal? The next shipment at ace comes next Wednesday so he will have been without food for two weeks.
He is about two months old. Not very active

Skip a meal and/or double up the next food offering - and look to see if you can find a backup! :)

Doing Frozen/thawed allows you to plan ahead by at least a couple weeks to ensure you can find rodents of the size needed in time.

-Jen

I would prefer to skip a meal and keep feeding the regular food rather than switch for a week.

1 Meal missed is nothing.

My big girl has no problems eating whatever it is I throw at her, but it may be different since she eats live. Since I've had her, she's eaten a mouse, 3 small rats, and a gerbil. Would have preferred not to give her the gerbil, but the pet store manager gave me 75% off as it wasn't a very nice gerbil and she was having trouble selling it as a pet (apparently it had bitten a good number of the employees and wasn't good with other gerbils either). It was about the same size as a small rat, which they didn't have any of at the time, so I went ahead. Chelsea took it down and didn't have any problem switching back to a rat the next week, but it may just be that live feeders are less of an issue than the frozen ones.

Not my proudest moment, and I'm pretty sure that gerbil turned into the biggest poo I've ever seen (out of a snake, anyway). Next time I'll probably just make the drive to a farther pet store.

Why not just order bulk? If your supplier is having such problems getting your orders on time, buying more than just a weeks worth at a time or switching suppliers altogether may be your best option.

Skip or dont, doesnt matter. I switch between prey items all the time and only a few of my animals are "will only take ___" animals. The vast majority will eat whatever so long as they recognize it as a prey item. I do F/T rats and mice and do live ASFs. This is especially true for young animals. If you build them on a varied diet they will always take the three prey items that are commonly fed. The "problem" feeders (as far as switching goes) in my collection are older adults that were always fed one thing. One of which being a very old subsaharan "giant" female that was wild caught. She will only take live ASFs or fake me out F/T ASFs drivebys.