Yummy yummy mice in tummy! lol

And that matters why? Like I said before in a few other posts... If a rat had 16g of protein and a mouse had 14g... and a Ball Python only NEEDS 4g every week to maintain it's body weight and sustain growth, then what does it matter what the snake eats?

I have female Balls over 1000g(4 actually) that are all eating mice. They each get 2-4 depending on their size and how many I want to give them that week. They maintain their body weight and I get around 100-110g of growth per month. In the case of one rescue, Breth(780g originally when I got her), she gained 1000g in 8 months. That growth is only by using 2-3 mice per week. I guess that's just not good enough. Let me go tell the poor, emaciated girl that mice aren't enough for her and she needs 200g rats every week. :colbert: Two of my later 2006 girls are both around 500g on one mouse per week.

If two 25g mice are fed to one snake, and one 45-50g small/small rat is fed to another snake, they're both getting the same amount of nutrition and will each be within grams of each other in body weight. A 3000g Ball would only need 2-3 mice per week to maintain, maybe 4 if you wanted to give her a little extra(the same as 2-50g rats).

And also, what the snake doesn't need will then be pooped out the other end. Feeding larger meals(medium/large rats) will get you more poo and refusals. I haven't had refusals from any of mine unless a shy one is in shed.

What I'm saying is... What may work for one person, may not work for the other. Mice work for me and a few others on here, and rats work for the rest. Feed whatever your snake will eat on a regular basis, and then decide what works best for you. Besides, that's an adult male Ball. If he's been eating mice his whole life, trying to switch him to rats is a bigger deal than some may think.

Just my 15 pennies

Thanks for all the input guys! :)

I think I'll stick to mice for now. satanic, you were talking about 2 25g mice per week? i think my f/t mice container showed they were like 60g each. I wonder if that is frozen? or is 60g just not possible for a mouse? lol I dont have a scale yet, and can't estimate the weight in grams. I guess by the pics though, you can see the mice are definitely small compared to what he *could* eat.

Also...any of you'se guys bp's stand up like that when they eat? i've got a buddy that says he's never seen one do that before, and he works in a pet store! :carrot:

Hehe, yeah, it's very cute when they go all "cobra-style" on you. Gravity works wonders for something that has no arms and legs to help the food go down. Imagine you trying to engulf a watermelon with no arms :)

I'll weigh some of my mice later(if they'll sit still). Some of the males are fairly large, but I doubt not anywhere near 60g(I may eat my words, haha). We'll see though. I just gave a rough estimate about what two mice "could" weigh. It doesn't matter what you feed, it's the weight of the prey animal(s). So 2-25g mice is the same as feeding 1-50g rat, however you look at it. My snakes look at rats like they are cold, 10 day old meatloaf from the depths of the fridge. But they look at mice like a Royale with cheese. ;)

And if you saw some of my girls, you'd wonder why they're not eating jumbo rats because of their girthiness. But they get mice, and 2-4 of them every week. They all gain weight very quickly, no one stops eating for no reason, etc etc ad nauseum.