New - F/T Mice Quantity Question

Hi! I am about to get my first snake, a female BEL (Butter x Mojave).. just waiting on good weather to ship. I am in the process of setting everything up - 6qt tub, Ultratherm UTH, 2 AcuRite Temp/Hygros, JumpStart Thermostat, 2 Reptile Basic small hides, water dish. Will be working on the temps/humidity so everything is good to go before she arrives. I have a quick question though. She is currently eating F/T Mice. I want to order some so I have on hand before/near when she's arriving. Most of the quantities I see are 50 for small mice and 25 for adult mice. She's between 100-200 grams. Would ordering 50 small mice be way too much. How quickly will she need to upsize prey? Any suggestions on sizing/quantities I should order? I've seen some sites where you can order smaller quantities, but I feel like for the shipping cost, it's almost better to order more, just don't want to have way too many frozen mice that will never be used. Hoping to eventually switch over to F/T rats.

Thanks!

50 small mice for 1 snake would be way over kill before theyll get used. Id reach out to your local reptile groups or find out when a close expo is to get a smaller quantity along with rats. If you get the 50 within a few weeks youd be giving her 2 a week and its much easier to switch them to rts now than waiting til those are gone so id try switching to rats as soon as shes been settled in and ate maybe twice for you.

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Great. Thanks.. That's what I figured, but just wanted to double check :-)

Before I switched my snake to rats, I bought f/t mice from Petsmart. I know, ugh, but no other place in town sells f/t, and I was not buying a giant pack of mice when I planned on feeding rats in the end. If you do want to buy mice online you could the smaller packs from Perfect Prey while also ordering your rats, if you haven't already. Perfect Prey sells smalls and adults in packs of 10.

The local reptile groups is also a good choice -- many of the local people near me are in a local Facebook group. I have noticed some of them feeding their mice/rats with dog food that has red dyes in it, so I'm kind of leery of purchasing from them as of right now. The red dyes cause tumor growth, and while that may not affect my snake, I'd rather not take the chance. If I did purchase from them, I'd probably ask what the mice/rats are being fed before I buy.

If you don't have a trusted local supplier I think buying in bulk is the next best option. You could get 25 small mice and 25 adult mice from Perfect Prey for about $65. That'll last you a solid year. It's $13 for 4 small mice at the local Petsmart. You'd only get 20 feeders for the same price.

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Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

If you don't have a trusted local supplier I think buying in bulk is the next best option. You could get 25 small mice and 25 adult mice from Perfect Prey for about $65. That'll last you a solid year. It's $13 for 4 small mice at the local Petsmart. You'd only get 20 feeders for the same price.

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But the issue with that quantity is its going to be too big for mice all together in another few weeks and should be switched to rats asap. Waiting to switch only makes it more difficult the longer the snake is on mice only. Theyd be better off over paying for a few weeks worth of petsmart mice and then ordering their rats in a larger quantity online (if a local source isnt found).

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by HannahLou

But the issue with that quantity is its going to be too big for mice all together in another few weeks and should be switched to rats asap. Waiting to switch only makes it more difficult the longer the snake is on mice only. Theyd be better off over paying for a few weeks worth of petsmart mice and then ordering their rats in a larger quantity online (if a local source isnt found).

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I agree that switching to rats asap would be ideal and in that case I'd order a similar sized number of rats or a combination of mice and rats while making the transition. My point is only that ordering in bulk online is less expensive than paying pet store prices.

Perfect prey is a great company too. If you call and talk to them they may be able to give you a 5 pack of rat pups on the "smaller" end closer to 20 grams then next order if she is over 200 you could get a 5 pack of pups on the larger end, until your little one gets bigger. That way she's not making as big of a size jump and switching to rats all at once.

When my male hit 550 grams I up'ed him to small rats and called to see if there was anyway to get the smallest of the smalls since I was not comfortable feeding him through the entire weight range (which for this company goes up to 89 grams). They were great on the phone and the order had rats from about 48 to 62 grams. I did this until he crested the 800 gram mark and I felt he could handle any size and stopped requesting which smalls i'd prefer. Also, at this point it won't hurt him any to have a few rats in the bunch that are on the small size of small, I just offer his next meal a few days sooner.

Thanks everyone! I found a local supplier and purchased a couple frozen mice to start with.