Switching to rats.

If you get a male and female rat , within a months time you will have plenty of rat kittens .

lol...how well do rats live outside...

Not very well . You don't like them I take it ? They actually make very good pets , the best in the rodent family in my opinion . They are very clean , they are as intelligent as most dogs , and bond with people in the same way . I have four does and six bucks , myself .

its not that i dont like them its just they smell like fanny 8-D

lol - if you're getting them from a pet store , that would be why . Rats that are cared for properly , have very little smell - males included . A clean rat smells ten times better than a mouse any day .

Yep, I clean my cages once a week, and if the rat itself needs a bath, it gets one. Ours don't like baths, but they tolerate them. Rats really don't smell unless you don't take care of them. And as Luvit73 said, they do make awesome pets. I think that mine are smarter than my dogs, except for Harry and Lloyd... But they are special...

If you have problems killing a rat, then try making the CO2 chamber. It's not too difficult. I was going to gas these 2 rats from my school since they are not useful and only 1 is kind of nice. I am going to put them in a cooler with some dry ice in a cup, add water to the dry ice and wait a few minutes. The carbon dioxide should put them to sleep, no pain, and no bloody noses from hitting them against the wall. I will probably put them into the freezer for later use when my girl is bigger.

Store bought, live rats are dangerous, because they are afraid and for the safety of your snake, it would be best to kill the rats beforehand either using the method above, or buying the frozen ones online/at a pet store. Maybe the pet store would kill them for you, it doesn't hurt to ask. The frozen ones rarely burst, and usually it's from being improperly frozen for too long, or being refrozen. I mean, you're not supposed to refreeze meat, so rats would be the same thing. Try a prekilled, and if your snake takes it, then the transition to f/t will be much easier. Frozen rodents really aren't as bad as you may think they are. I have about 14 frozen mice in my freezer, all of which I killed myself. None have burst, except for the one I hit too hard on the wall, LoL. All thawed very easily in a jar of water changed twice with just hot tap water. It's just so much easier than having to keep live rodents, feed them a "Good" diet, and then have to watch for however long it takes for the snake to get it. If the snake isn't hungry, what do you do with the live mouse/rat...?

Just some things to think about. Try prekilled or frozen, it's really not all bad. :)

Just adding in that your bp looks like it could easily take a small to medium rat. My bp is going on 6 months old, 2 feet long, and is the thickness of a banana. And she just ate her first rat last friday. It was a big weanling rat. :)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Luvit73

Yep , the rats do scream - and struggle , and squeek , until almost fully dead . A Suggestion ? I breed rats , and have only fed my 3 month old boy , rat kittens since I've gotten him . A 3-4 week old rat is not nearly as aggressive as an adult - in fact , mine usually cruise around with the snake checking everything out , before sitting almost in front of him to groom itself - some have even groomed the snake . Being so young , and never having seen a snake before , they are not afraid of him (or aggressive towards him ) in the least .
A rat kitten , even at only 3-4 weeks old , is still significantly larger than a grown mouse , and would make a much better meal - even if you still had to give two . And the bonus is that you don't need to worry as much about your snake being injured by it's dinner .

---

ahh, a bad memory went into my heat when you said rat kitten, I think cody heard about this but, on another forum, there was this big topic on someone that fed there BP ktittens. It was really awful....ahh...i'll try and find the liink if I can...ok here: http://repticzone.com/forums/BallPyt...es/167905.html

Anyways, I fed live rats to a rescue RTB that would hardly eat the live, one did bite her on the nose, but it didn't even make a mark, what happend was she bit it on the but and it turned around and nipped her, but there was no blood, or mark.

Wow, i read that thread on the "12 foot ball python" eating kittens, im so glad our site is not like that, that thing was freakin crazy!!

Read it and you will know what im talkin about.

Wow , that's horrible . I didn't mean to bring up any bad memories for you . I hear alot of people calling baby rats "pups" , but the correct term for a baby rat is actually "kitten" . So I'm wondering , after reading that thread , if the person's brother was referring to rat kittens , but left it at kittens , to mess with that person's head . Either way it's still wrong .
Yeah , my ratlets have occasionally nibbled on me (when my hands smell like food) but they just don't have the jaw strength to really do anything .

On a side note - and don't get me wrong here , a snake must be fed what is appropriate for it , and I personally feed mine rats - but domestic rats have actually been bred , for over 100 years now , as pets - not feeders . If anyone is interested in a history of domesticated rats , just ask , and I'll be happy to post a link . :)