Prey size...

i was gonna say... pinkie mice to 300g balls hummmmm.

Okay let's do a little rat stages of life thing LOL....

Rats are born as "pinks"....this is the stage when they have no hair, their eyes are shut and their ears are tight to the head....they depend totally on the female rat for her milk and for life...these are newborn pinkie rats...
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...es13of18-1.jpg

At around day 8 of life they start to develop their first coat, a tight to the body, satin looking coat and are referred to as "fuzzies"....their eyes are still closed, their ears are tight to the skull...they still only take in mother's milk for nutrition...these are fuzzy rats...
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...of11Sept06.jpg

About day 15 they become "pups", their eyes open, their ears become erect and they develop a full coat of fur.....they will start to follow mother rat to her food bowl and try her water bottle (usually by day 20 or so, some try earlier)...they still need to nurse however....this is a young rat pup whose eyes have just opened....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...escutebaby.jpg

As they approach weaning at about 4 or 5 weeks of age (some wean as early as 3.5 weeks) they become quite large pups, as soon as they are weaned they are "weanlings" or "wean rats".....here is a picture of a litter that I weaned off their mother just after this picture was taken so this is basically a group of nice wean rats....notice how much they grow during the pup stage...at this stage they no longer need their mother's milk but will continue to bother her for nursing...they really need to be independent and seperated by gender no later than 5 weeks of age.....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...itterMar07.jpg

This is another example of a recently weaned rat...
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Lightning1.jpg

Same male rat a couple of weeks later when he is big enough to be no longer considered a weanling rat...
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Lightning2.jpg

Example to show size differences...the right on the left is a breeding size female...I would call her a medium in size....to the right is a younger female, not yet to breeding size, a big small if you like as far as size....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...s/HCandJet.jpg

Another example, an adult male rat with his male offspring who is a small in these photo's (smaller than that black female rat pictured above)...
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...Supernova2.jpg

Here is a link to www.rodentpro.com Check them for exact lengths and weights on each developmental stage of both mice and rats.

Here's a handy comparison size chart for mice and rats....
http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2.../sizechart.jpg

great post Jo!

:gj:

Awesome - thanks a lot for that.

Ok, well today was feeding day. I've got a new girl who's still feeling things out, and has refused to take a frozen rat to this point. Today I thought I'd try something different, so I went and bought her some live prey. I got the smallest small the pet store had, but it was still quite a bit larger than the frozen smalls I have. Well, she wasn't interested much at all. She sniffed around, and lost interest. After she made a couple adventurous attempts to leave her tub (and having to put the rat back in after escaping 3 times) I decided she'd had enough, so I put the lid back on and put her away.

So, now I've got a large-ish small rat and no place to keep him.

Well, I hadn't fed my smaller girl yet, so I thought, "what the heck, maybe she'll kill him so I won't have to. Got her tub out, dropped the rat in, literally the instant he hit the floor she struck. Clean hit, grabbed him right by the side of his head. 2 minutes later, after very little struggle, he was dead, and she was on her way to eating him. Let me just say WOW. There's nothing in the world like watching a snake eat prey that looks like it's way too big for them to get down. She took it down with ease, though, and seemed like she was looking for more! Well, I didn't oblige, I knew she'd had her fill, so I put the lid back on and put her away too.

So, let me just say, thank you Sugar for not making me kill that rat! lol