Incredible allergic reaction to rats, please help!

Hairless rats might be an option for you too.

So I got them all on quail finally. I actually found a store near me that has them, I’m paying next to nothing for them so until that runs out I’ll keep layne as a back up.

It’s not the fur exactly that I’m allergic to. It’s the rat urine. Male rats mark more and I have a higher reaction to them vs females, but even those are now way too much, I should have gone to the er last time but I’m stubborn.

Luckily they are eating quail, the boa took a few weeks to adjust from live mice but she destroyed the thawed quail most recently.
I’ll have to see how weight of quail vs rats changes their weight, haven’t been weighing prey recently tho

Glad to hear it's working out for you. :gj: Severe allergies are nothing to fool with.

I've heard that boas eating birds (at least chicks) often have smelly and runny stools, so don't worry if you see that. I hope the quail work well for everybody!

If you're curious, found an old study on nutrition of vertebrate prey:
Quail - Moisture 65%, remaining matter Protein 68%, fat 29%
Adult Rat - Moisture 66%, remaining matter Protein 62%, fat 33%
Day old chick - Moisture 75%, remaining matter Protein 65%, fat 22%

Old thread but I’d say that so far they seem smelly but not so much runny. He’s eating 80-110 size from Layne labs. He’s 1113 g so I’m assuming 1 every 9-10 days should be sufficient. We had been getting quail locally 72cent each and that was nice but since all this happened, I had to feed all my snakes mice, for maybe 2 months, just got the Layne labs order in a couple days ago actually, they look healthier then where I was getting them. Mice was a disaster as even my ball python was eating 5-6 a week a week and still seemed hungry. Luckily they have had a varied diet (mice rats and quail) and hoping to add some random prey items as they get bigger just for variety, atleast in the boa.
Hope everyone is being healthy.

Glad things are working out ok for you & yours.