Do Ball Pythons HAVE to Eat Rats?

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Originally Posted by RustHeart

UPDATE

Sunny is 1 lb 10 oz. How much should she be eating?

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Thats roughly 738 grams

Rats are 100% recommended diet, if they will take them they will be much happier and healthier, as some have said they CAN eat mice, but you would need to feed an adult 4-5 adult mice to equal a full sized meal. I would urge you to try f/t and if you are not able to handle it, (and I mean this in no way to sound heartless) it is probably best to find a home that would. I also struggle with feeding rats, as I do not want to see any animal dead, but these are wild animals and rat eaters by nature. I always justify it as rats have a short lifespan and reproduce in large numbers essentially over night whereas the snake takes a lot more time, energy, and has about 8x the maximum life span of a rat. I know it is hard, but you need to do the best thing you can for the animal you brought into your home.

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Originally Posted by Cam the Snake Man

Rats are 100% recommended diet, if they will take them they will be much happier and healthier,

these are wild animals and rat eaters by nature.

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Neither of these two cuts hold any water.......
An animal with proper husbandry is the goal.

They are also opportunistic feeders. They have been seen eating all kinds of rodents and birds in the wild as well as a house mate when some people try to keep multiples in the same enclosure.

I have kept snakes for years, like so many others on this form. Long story short, when a I started keeping balls about 5 years ago I started with hoppers, and now I feed jumbo mice every 5 days. I keep all males. As mentioned before and by so many, husbandry is what’s most important. Here’s their age and weights just for reference. 5/14=1573grams, 7/14=1563grams, 8/16=1004grams, and 11/16=963grams. Yeah if I had females I definitely use rats, but mice sure seem to be working for me. And the big boys barely eat for half a year, 😉. So many misconceptions and repeated nonsense. There are so many ways to do something right. ✌️

If you go with frozen thawed. I feed frozen thawed for safety reasons and because i get it in packs of 5 to 10 and cost me alot less. my 7 month old ball before i adopted her was on live for its entire life. It took me about 3 weeks to transfer her. My trick was i would put in warm water for about half hour or an hour to fully dethaw the rat. Dry the rat off compeletly. Blow dry it to warm it up. Get feeding tongs its a must unless you want to risk getting bit. Grab the rat by the back of the neck or mouse whichever you decide to do. And make it do a little head bobbing/dance to indicate its still alive. It worked everytime with mine. When they have it and are constricting you can also give the rat a little bit of tugs not hard very lightly. Mine was very stubborn. My new one again has been on live its entire life just adopted her friday. Previous owner tried f/t but kept getting bit trying. Im stubborn even if she gets me i will continue to do f/t unless she starts losing alot of weight. Shes 2+ years old weighs about 1700 grams so the person told me. Im going to weigh her tonight to see. I will be doing the exact same methods and transfering her over. It sometimes can take months. Dont worry just keep track of weight while doing it and make sure they dont lose alot of weight a small amount is okay. Hope this helps.

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Bumping old topic, but I have to put my 2 cents in... it is ignorant to think that you MUST feed rats to keep a ball pythons healthy.
Royal Pythons can live healthy feeding on a variety of rodents or even birds.
Mice are fine, they are just small so you have to feed a bunch of them to the snake.
My pythons will eat mice or rats and even switch back and forth. One big part of feeding response is good husbandry. Of course, some of these snakes have stubborn personalities when it comes to feeding. I have a couple like that myself.


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Originally Posted by Godzilla78

https://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.asp


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Cool chart. Absolutely no idea what the numbers mean. But it does look impressive.

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Originally Posted by RustHeart

So I am thinking that my best choice is to keep her on mice for now but switch to frozen. Then when I get out of school, which will be 6 months at the most, I will switch to frozen rats. This is purely because I don't want to have to ask my friend to switch it up so much. Especially since she's already doing me a huge favor for caring for my snake and paying for her food for this long. Plus if young ball pythons can eat mice just fine it should be okay.

I am seeing two different options here about which is better. I think it'll be best to go with frozen rats just because it would be easier than doing multible mice. As long as its already dead I dont think I will have an issue emotionally to feed it.

Plus if it's healthier I defiantly want her to have the more healthy option. I understand some people say its the same health wise but more convenient and possibly healthier seems good to me. Sounds like a win win.

My friend doesn't have a way to weigh her so I have to wait until she gets one. So I probably won't get the weight today. I really hope she's still small enough for a single mouse and she hasnt been underfed. I'd feel terrible.

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Where are you going to school?