Can they thrive on mice......

Most definitely. As long as you are feeding them enough mice at a time, they will grow just as fast as a snake eating rats.

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Originally Posted by L.West

I have two bp's that prefer mice over rats. I offer them about 4 small mice at each feeding.

Can mice sustain them fine throughout their lives??

Just wanted some experts to chime in on this because I wasn't sure.

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Thank you for posting this. I too have a similar situation. My normal female, will only eat mice. She eats 2 each feeding, except now during breeding season she eats one or 2 every other week instead of every week. Anyway, about 9 months back or so, I fed her a rat. She took it and ate it very well. After that, she never touched a rat again. I think they become fixed on a certain smell or something that the mouse gives off. For instance, if you house rats and mice together the rats will usually kill the mice. Rats and mice give off a certain smell, while they may still be pretty similar in nutrition, they def. must smell differently to the BP. I sit there and try and try to feed her a rat, and she will come up to it, smell it and turn away. I put the rat down, offer her a mouse and BAM she gets it every time. BP's tend to be picky eaters. Although most of mine are great eaters, however, since she is picky I feed her what she wants and what she will eat. I would rather have that instead of having her not eat. She is a little over a year old and about 970-1000gr. :)

once again, THANK YOU for posting this! we got our first BP 3 or 4 weeks ago and have yet to see him eat. weve tried every version of small to medium rat. (live, stunned, dead. in a seperate tub and in his tank). we froze the last one which we are going to try and feed him monday. if he dosent eat that we will now, for sure, try a mouse. i'm with ya on, as long as he eats i dont care what it is. not sure of his weight, dont have a scale yet but he is def. fat and healthy right now which means hes GOT to be a good eater but he may be imprinted on something we havent figured out yet. we got him from the local pet store and knowing what we know now, we will not do that again. we love him dearly but they knew nothing about him. ive dropped the hint that i sure would like to know where he came from so i could get some history on him as he was 53" the day we brought him home. they avoid the question. he seems to have been very well cared for but we just cant get him to eat. decided to quit worrying until spring, or if he really starts dropping weight. he may be a winter faster but i sure would like him to eat and mouse is the next thing on the menu if f/t fails as well. thank you again!

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Originally Posted by h&tmaster

once again, THANK YOU for posting this! we got our first BP 3 or 4 weeks ago and have yet to see him eat. weve tried every version of small to medium rat. (live, stunned, dead. in a seperate tub and in his tank). we froze the last one which we are going to try and feed him monday. if he dosent eat that we will now, for sure, try a mouse. i'm with ya on, as long as he eats i dont care what it is. not sure of his weight, dont have a scale yet but he is def. fat and healthy right now which means hes GOT to be a good eater but he may be imprinted on something we havent figured out yet. we got him from the local pet store and knowing what we know now, we will not do that again. we love him dearly but they knew nothing about him. ive dropped the hint that i sure would like to know where he came from so i could get some history on him as he was 53" the day we brought him home. they avoid the question. he seems to have been very well cared for but we just cant get him to eat. decided to quit worrying until spring, or if he really starts dropping weight. he may be a winter faster but i sure would like him to eat and mouse is the next thing on the menu if f/t fails as well. thank you again!

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One of the Balls I had about a year ago wouldn't eat anything. I tried everything except Soft-Furred rodents. I tried mice, rats, F/T, etc. Didn't know what to do. I got her from a "reputable company" off of KingSnake. She was a Pastel Jungle. I had her for 1yr. She never ate, except once and it was a Soft-Furr. She regurgitated right away. Took her to the vet. No parasites. She hated being held, always wanted to be somewhere high. I would hold her and immediately she wanted to be on my head then from my head, she would look up searching for somewhere higher. Anyway, I called the company back because she sure acted like a Wild Caught. Her skin along her spine was all brittle as if she was out in the sun with a bad sunburn. Not red, just brittle. No scale rot or burns or anything like that. Anyway, had her for a year, tried all food. She never shed, the day she passed, she had very bad smelling brown liquid oozing from her mouth and cloaca. She passed away only weighting 364 grams! After she passed, I put her on her back and opened her length wise along her stomach and found her to have had her internal organs rotted out. Everything was giving off a foul odor and the inside of her tissue was flaking off and white (like a mold), it was horrible. However, as soon as she died the smell that she was leaking out of her instantly disappeared. I found her stomach to have ruptured as well as her liver. First time ever doing an autopsy and I must say I was very proud of myself on how well I did and had complete closure on the situation with my Pastel Jungle. I keep a detailed report on any snakes that have passed away and the findings/causes. It helps me to dictate all of this on paper that way I know what signs/symptoms to look for if it ever comes across my path again.

Long story short, I wish I would have known she was WC or not. It would have saved me a GREAT deal of stress while she was alive and sadness when losing her. If I would've know she was wild caught I would've instantly started her on Soft-Furred instead of waiting until she was too internally damaged to eat it. :tears::tears::tears:

I'm glad that this post was useful to a few of you. I was really struggling with trying to switch these two snakes of mine to rats but now can take comfort in knowing that they can and will thrive on eating only mice.

i would continue to try to switch them to rats, as they do offer better nutrition then mice and are cheaper in the long run. That being said, I have 2 girls that despite trying for 6 months will not switch from mice. In that time they took no more then 2 rats a peice but will eat 4-6 mice a sitting. Best of luck whichever route you go. Scenting a rat with a mouse or bedding from mice can sometimes encourage them to switch.

gomez finally ate! 4 days ago we went to the pet store and got their last mouse and a fuzzy. it took him a minute but he finally took the mouse like a champ! he ate the fuzzy as well. that was interesting as he is too big and it was too small but we decided if he ate the 1 mouse we wanted to offer him something else as well. were going to a local breeders house on sunday to have him sexed and look at their collection. they breed mice so were gonna bring 4 or five home and try again. thank you again for the post, it got our baby to eat!