Rat prey size question

Hi, this is my first post here. I have had my BP for two months now. I got it from petco (not the best place to go after reading about snakes from there here). She had a RI but i got that cleared up after a trip to the vet and some meds.

She got weighed about three weeks ago and was 208g, shes about 6 months old and roughly two feet in length. I feed her one F/T adult mouse every friday. So my question is i want to switch her to rats to avoid feeding multiple mice and i have read rats are better for the snake and i want to know what size rats to feed. i have read that rat pups are about the same as adult mice. So is that the right prey size?

Prey size should be the same size as the widest part of your snake.

Be prepared sometimes they don't switch, she'll be fine on mice it will just be more of pain for you. Most of mine love rats but I have three that won't even look at them. Good luck

Depends on the adult mouse, depends on the age of the rat pup really. Just compare your snake's largest girth (empty - not full of prey or poop) to the largest area of the rat (the hips & butt end as rats are pretty much triangular in shape). You want the rat size to fit that girth basically so the snake is full after eating but doesn't have a huge, distended belly.

Thanks for the help. Hopefully i can make the switch to rats with no problems. I was thinking of rubbing an extra mouse i had on the rat before feeding it. Would that make the switch easier?

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Originally Posted by Ciccone07

Thanks for the help. Hopefully i can make the switch to rats with no problems. I was thinking of rubbing an extra mouse i had on the rat before feeding it. Would that make the switch easier?

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I've known of people scenting the rat with a mouse, but try the rat alone at first. If the rat alone doesn't work you can poke a whole into the top of the head and squeeze a little brain goop out to make the scent stronger. This worked for me. I know it's dirty job, but you should only have to do it a few times to get the snake started.