Just ate but isnt seen

Hi,


Actually that may not be accurate.

A rat the size of most adult mice still has it's eyes shut almost and certainly doesnt have adult dentition or co-ordination.

Even a rat the weight of 2 adult mice should only be a weaner I think.

Hopefully someone can step in here with exact stages of rat development to equate to 2 adult mice in the food stakes.:confused:

An adult rat however is definately capabable of doing a lot of damage.

I assume this is the other reason Adam feeds rats about 40g to his snakes - the main one being he has found that they grow and eat consistently well on this diet.


dr del

but I'm referring to a rat that is equivalent to two smallish adult mice. That has to have more biting power.

I've been pondering getting a scale. Saying "I'll have two small adult mice" gets you a pretty widely varying meal size.

Hi,

You are definately right on that point they do vary a lot from shop to shop etc.

I just weighed what I get if I ask for adult mice (as opposed to huuuge adult mice) and it came in at 26g.

I then measured a large rat fuzzy at 17g.

I only had one other non-adult sized rat and it had hair but still wasn't ready to open it's eyes but was pretty small and only weighed in at 20g.


hopefully one of the rat breeders will b able to give a better idea of weights by size - all of mine were frozen at the time of weighing if that makes a difference.


dr del

BP's do quite well on one 40-50 gram rat a week. They don't need to be fed to see a lump, most keepers over-feed their snakes. A 40-50 gram rat's teeth are too soft to do damage - I've been "bitten" enough times by them to know - doesn't even break the skin.


You should be feeding slightly smaller than their girth - they don't need large meals each week. Smaller meals really do result in great growth rates. I have a het clown male that was 1000 grams at 10 months old on 2 small/medium mice a week and nothing more. He's now on 1 small/small rat (a 4 week old rat) a week.

Murdoc is a glutton.
Eats regular now without any problems.
After the feast though he/she tends to chill underneath the drift wood instead of either one of the hides.
So I dunno about that.
Has yet to show and signs of a shed too.