Rats vs mice

So we went to Hamburg expo Saturday and were checking out some baby bananas. The vendor/breeder made a comment about starting them on mice. He said that they are higher in calcium than rats for babies. Said the "spongy" snakes can be from starting on rats. Is there any truth to this? Does it matter at any stage what rodent is fed? His snakes were gorgeous and super healthy but I've never heard this before.

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Originally Posted by Micki

So we went to Hamburg expo Saturday and were checking out some baby bananas. The vendor/breeder made a comment about starting them on mice. He said that they are higher in calcium than rats for babies. Said the "spongy" snakes can be from starting on rats. Is there any truth to this? Does it matter at any stage what rodent is fed? His snakes were gorgeous and super healthy but I've never heard this before.

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I've seen people start babies on hopper mice for a meal or two as they move a lot more and are more enticing. I wouldn't think the calcium rate would be higher in mice than rats based on weight, but I could very well be wrong as I've never really looked into that.

If you don't mind me asking, which vendor/breeder made this comment?

I agree with the vendor. To me anything smaller than a weaned rat is just a "milk bag". Their bones, organs and muscles aren't fully formed and they are filled with mothers milk which isn't good for a snake to begin with. I always feed my babies hopper mice up to large adult mice. Then I transition them over to weaned rats and then onward up to large rats. If they get large enough to eat larger than a large rat, I move them to rabbits as jumbo rats tend to be fatty old rats which again aren't good. This mostly applies to boas though as they don't digest fat well. Pythons can digest fat better but still I wouldn't want to subject them to any more fat than was needed and if I could, I would avoid a lot of it. Some fat is good and needed though.

And before someone chimes in about them eating baby rodents and stuff in the wild, true but they also eat lots of other stuff which we don't provide. A pure diet of baby rodents for a year straight plus not exercising and just sitting in a 3x2 or 4x2 cage just compounds that problem.

I disagree with the vendor

To the does it matter what rodent is fed? Well it depends.

While it’s true that there is a difference if you compare identical size mice and rat with animals like BP who transition from one size to another fairly quickly I do not find it to be a concern short or long term. I start everything on mice because they are more enticing however after the 3rd meals everything eats rats and I used to start snakes on rats with no issue.

Now with some adult colubrids and other adult smaller snakes it would be different, for example if the maximum prey size is an adult mouse, it would be preferable to feed adult mice compare to rat pups especially since you are looking at long term. Mice have more protein, less fat and are better suited for smaller snakes that feed on smaller preys during their entire lifetime. Rat can be offered but I would suggest to keep this an occasional treat especially with species like hognose etc

As for the "spongy" claim if it was the case their would be a lot of "spongy" snakes out there (whatever that means)

Not sure his name. If you went he was in the second row back near the entrance. All ball pythons.

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Originally Posted by Deborah

To the does it matter what rodent is fed? Well it depends.

While it’s true that there is a difference if you compare identical size mice and rat with animals like BP who transition from one size to another fairly quickly I do not find it to be a concern short or long term. I start everything on mice because they are more enticing however after the 3rd meals everything eats rats and I used to start snakes on rats with no issue.

Now with some adult colubrids and other adult smaller snakes it would be different, for example if the maximum prey size is an adult mouse, it would be preferable to feed adult mice compare to rat pups especially since you are looking at long term. Mice have more protein, less fat and are better suited for smaller snakes that feed on smaller preys during their entire lifetime. Rat can be offered but I would suggest to keep this an occasional treat especially with species like hognose etc

As for the "spongy" claim if it was the case their would be a lot of "spongy" snakes out there (whatever that means)

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I Couldnt agree more. Honestly the vendor sounds like an amatuer.

I stand by one rule.....
Feed what they will eat. 😉

According to the nutrient chart on rodent pro, juvenile rats 10-50 grams are crude protein 56%, fat 27%, adult mouse is 55% and 24% (approx). Calcium about 3% for a rat and 2% for a mouse. For me it depends on the animal-I feed my hognose mostly adult mice but the the rest of my collection is mainly on rats but moved up quickly in size. Something to think about anyways.

http://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.asp

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Originally Posted by Sauzo

I agree with the vendor. To me anything smaller than a weaned rat is just a "milk bag". Their bones, organs and muscles aren't fully formed and they are filled with mothers milk which isn't good for a snake to begin with. I always feed my babies hopper mice up to large adult mice. Then I transition them over to weaned rats and then onward up to large rats. If they get large enough to eat larger than a large rat, I move them to rabbits as jumbo rats tend to be fatty old rats which again aren't good. This mostly applies to boas though as they don't digest fat well. Pythons can digest fat better but still I wouldn't want to subject them to any more fat than was needed and if I could, I would avoid a lot of it. Some fat is good and needed though.

And before someone chimes in about them eating baby rodents and stuff in the wild, true but they also eat lots of other stuff which we don't provide. A pure diet of baby rodents for a year straight plus not exercising and just sitting in a 3x2 or 4x2 cage just compounds that problem.

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This is for ball pythons, I don't see a ball python (responsibly) being on a large rat, let alone anything bigger than that.

As Deborah said, bps seem to go up in sizes much faster than say, a boa constrictor, like what your response is more geared towards. So it shouldn't hurt to get them on rats ASAP. A boa would benefit on mice vs rats because they won't be moving up more than 2 prey sizes within a year's time. My sunglow girl just made the switch to rats at 16 months, and my 2 year old BRB is still on mice, but should make the switch soon. My bigger hypo BRB will probably make the switch to rats sometime between 1.5 and 2 years old. From what I've seen ball pythons are usually on small rats by 1-3 years depending on how fast they grow and how they're fed (numbers may be off a bit as I don't follow BPs too closely).