Rat pups or large adult mice?

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Originally Posted by szynk.reptiles

i switch to rats while still long ... u may find it easier to make the switch now vs. later.. i bought a proven breeder spider male that was a mouse eater and ive been spending weeks getting him to regularly eat rats.. i much perfer to feed rats
but i also perfer live vs. ft

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I'm rather new but I was given this advice, as well. Rats do hold more nutritional value in the long run. I have a one persistent superpastel that is a mouse feeder, live only, to make matters worse. I'm still working on getting her to convert to rats. I find it a bit of a pain because I breed my own rodents, with the exception of mice. Good luck!

The bad thing bout feeding live rats, when the snake gets on small/medium rats the rats are somewhat intelligent and could harm the snake

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Originally Posted by Tinyballs

Thank you for the advice! I do have an adult corn though that eats every 10 days (large mice) and the ball python that eats about every week.

What would you order?

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I would order an order of the large mice and your weanlings then. That way, when your BP needs to move up to his weanlings you will (I'm sure) have plently left over for your corn. Like I said though the large adults IMO are kinda small being 20-28 grams usually so you may need to double up on feeders per feeding session for your corn if he is on the larger side, or feed more frequently so he's not underfed.

I could even go so far as to suggest you get a bag of small rats as well. Kept properly frozen feeders can last a long time in the freezer, and that way if you decide to get a larger snake down the road or if your BP moves up his feeders quickly then you won't need to shovel out a large amount in shipping costs for bigger feeders because you'll already have some on hand.

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Originally Posted by EnutButter

I'm rather new but I was given this advice, as well. Rats do hold more nutritional value in the long run. I have a one persistent superpastel that is a mouse feeder, live only, to make matters worse. I'm still working on getting her to convert to rats. I find it a bit of a pain because I breed my own rodents, with the exception of mice. Good luck!

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I haven't seen any concrete evidence that rats are more nutritious, though it is more convenient to feed rats because down the road when the snake gets larger you won't need to double up on feeders per feeding session: a small rat equals so many mice, a medium rat equals so many mice, and so on.

Suggestion to help convert: rub the rat with the mouse (if feeding P/K or F/T) to prescent the rat to smell like the mouse. And if feeding live: put the rat in some dirty mice bedding before offering to try to scent the rat to smell like a mouse. It may be worth a try if you haven't tried this before. Good luck!

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Originally Posted by Herpking

The bad thing bout feeding live rats, when the snake gets on small/medium rats the rats are somewhat intelligent and could harm the snake

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You can always convert the snake to be a F/T eater or a prekilled eater to take away the danger of the rat harming the snake. Personally, if I bought live feeders for my snakes or bred my own feeders I wouldn't offer live anyway: I'd work to convert my snakes to eating at least prekilled.

I am trying to convert my live feeders to f/t I was just stating a disadvantage of feeding live

I feed mine mice until they need larger, then I switch them to rats. Mice are cheaper. I see no reason to waste money. I also buy from Rodent Pro, BTW.

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Originally Posted by Daybreaker

You can always convert the snake to be a F/T eater or a prekilled eater to take away the danger of the rat harming the snake.

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That's easier said that done. I sold off around forty ball pythons because I could not switch them.

It makes no sence to feed it mice when its going to eventually need rats anyways. The longer you wait to get it on rats the harder it can be. First meals for hatchlings here are rat pinks and they stay on rats. If you feed mice sooner or later the animal is going to need multiple mice to equal one rat so you will be saving money in the long run. Dont skimp on the important things

I would order a half and half kind of thing. However many you decide to get, do half rat pups and half rat weanlings. Here's what I did...Each one of those are weighed in a certain range like 20-29g or whatever. So I order half and half and when I got them (I emailed RodentPro and was able to pick up the order at local Repticon to save on shipping) I used my scale and weighted each one. From there I put them in individual baggies with the weight of the rats written on the outside. Then I organized them from smallest to largest (in weight) and that's how I feed. If I notice that my BPs are still hungry after eating the smaller ones, I change feeding from once every 7 days to feeding once every 5 days until the smaller rats are gone. Then switch to the bigger rats and back to every 7 days.

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Originally Posted by Herpking

The bad thing bout feeding live rats, when the snake gets on small/medium rats the rats are somewhat intelligent and could harm the snake

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:confused:

They're dumb as a doorknob when they're being fed off. They don't have the slightest idea that they're in danger. I've always fed live, mice of all ages and rats of all ages. None have harmed any of my collection. And I've literally fed off thousands of them.