Rats versus Mice

Mice for me. Mainly because my snake is only a few months old and has just moved up to adult mice. :)

I feed mice and rats.....does not matter....a rodent is a rodent.

I feed both - what ever the snake will take. I have some adults that won't take rats and some that turn their noses up at mice. I would love for them all to be on rats becasue I find raising them are much easier.


Has anyone (Adam?) deterined why some breeders say to raise babies on mice then switch to rats once they are about a year old? Is it easier to get babies to eat rats?

Alice

i feed most of my snakes rats just because i really dont want to get into breeding mice again . i have some snakes that are just plain to small to eat even a rat pink so they get mouse pinks . once they get big enough for rats thats what they will get too . i breed my own rats so thats really the main reason i use rats . if i had any that would only feed on mice then i would feed it mice . as long as they are eating something i'm happy .

No way am I breeding mice LOL. I put three darn adult mice in a my rodent room last month and they stunk it up in 1 day! 60 rats...no smell....60 rats plus 3 darn mice...BIG STINK! I'll just buy the little nippers until I have a basement!

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

60 rats...no smell....60 rats plus 3 darn mice...BIG STINK!

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Really rats don't smell? I was raising mice but got rid of them due to the smell. But never thought that rats wouldn't smell.

Went to a rat farm couple weeks ago. It was in some guys house. It wreaked but now that I think of it he also had mice too.

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Originally Posted by kplunk

Really rats don't smell? I was raising mice but got rid of them due to the smell. But never thought that rats wouldn't smell.

Went to a rat farm couple weeks ago. It was in some guys house. It wreaked but now that I think of it he also had mice too.

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Well I don't know about everybody's rats but mine have little to no smell. Maybe a bit if it's the day before bedding change but that's about it. I've asked visitors to our home if they can smell the rats and most say that one kitty litter box reeks more than all our rats do combined. We change out all their bedding once per week and do a mid-week partial change/freshening up. Seems to work nicely. Clean rats really do not smell like most rodents. Also don't overcrowd them, that helps a lot I've found.

I feed all my snakes rats unless the snake is small. If it has refused rats a few times I may try mice until it gets its appetite back.

I feed rats only. I don't mind their smell as opposed to mice, and i breed my own, so this matters.. I jsut like feeding one prey item to my adults, as opposed to multiples, also.
Now that I have these ratsnake hatchlings though, mouse pinkies are in my near future, bleh.

Mice smell 1000x worse IMO so I will be raising rats. I am doing f/t for now so I can save some money to build a rat colony. I am still figuring out expenses as compared to buying frozen from RP or another company. I heard once you get 3 or 4 snakes is when it can become cheaper to breed your own and I am soon to have 7 here to feed plus my big BCI at a friend's for breeding, so I would say I am a bit overdo.