Rats versus Mice

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Originally Posted by nixer

rat supposedly make them grow bigger faster than mice.
personally i use rats, the only problem with rats are they pee all the time compared to mice and i tried african soft furred rats and they all killed each other but the one i have left. right now i have 2 female mice left and 1 female asf left im thinking of just keeping them as pets since ive had them for a few months anyway and the one mouse seems to be very curious of what im doing around the room.

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Where did you hear this?

I've got some mousers that are larger than some of my ratters, same aged snakes.

Not sure why you'd want them to grow faster anyway though?

These two girls were raised on mice. One has recently switched to rats, one prefers mice still (the larger of the two, incidently). Both were raised on two adult mice a week:

Echo '05 Female - raised on mice, recently converted to one 3-4 week old rat a week - 1200 grams
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...o/EchoJan3.jpg

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...o/EchoJan5.jpg

Pandora '05 Female - raised on mice, will occassionally take a rat, but prefers 2 mice instead - 1400 grams
http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...andoraJan3.jpg

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...andoraJan4.jpg

I feed my BPs rats, use to feed mice but not anymore. From everything I have read and heard, rats are better for them then mice, not that mice are bad. Rats are the way to go IMO, your going to have to feed them eventually anyway when they get bigger. Just my opinion though :)

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Originally Posted by ReptileMan27

I feed my BPs rats, use to feed mice but not anymore. From everything I have read and heard, rats are better for them then mice, not that mice are bad. Rats are the way to go IMO, your going to have to feed them eventually anyway when they get bigger. Just my opinion though :)

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Jason, why are rats better than mice? There are a lot of mousers in ball python collections that never eat rats, no matter how large they are.

There's been no study done on the nutritional requirements of ball pythons, so I'm not sure how one can come to the conclusion that rats are better than mice.

That said - I would like all of mine to convert to rats, simply because I am now breeding rats, and not mice. Not because I think that rats are better for them, but because they smell less and are more fun to breed than mice.

I dont think they are better just bigger and as you BP gets bigger, bigger is better. Are we confused yet?

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Originally Posted by westcoastjungle

I dont think they are better just bigger and as you BP gets bigger, bigger is better. Are we confused yet?

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Not to be contrary (well, ok, maybe a little :P ) - but why is bigger better? Better for the snake, or more convenient for the keeper?

40 grams of rat or 40 grams of mice, what's the difference? Even my adults only get about 40-50 grams a week. They really don't need more than that.

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Jason, why are rats better than mice? There are a lot of mousers in ball python collections that never eat rats, no matter how large they are.

There's been no study done on the nutritional requirements of ball pythons, so I'm not sure how one can come to the conclusion that rats are better than mice.

That said - I would like all of mine to convert to rats, simply because I am now breeding rats, and not mice. Not because I think that rats are better for them, but because they smell less and are more fun to breed than mice.

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Well, if you look at the poll, its pretty safe to say most people dont have problems feeding rats;). Im sure it does happen, BPs that wont take rats but does that mean you shouldnt try it?, IMO if you can get you BP taking rats. Mice are kind of a small meal for an adult BP, of course you could feed a couple but personally I would rather just feed one rat. I personally never had any problems getting BPs to take rats.

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Originally Posted by ReptileMan27

Well, if you look at the poll, its pretty safe to say most people dont have problems feeding rats;). Im sure it does happen, BPs that wont take rats but does that mean you shouldnt try it?, IMO if you can get you BP taking rats. Mice are kind of a small meal for an adult BP, of course you could feed a couple but personally I would rather just feed one rat. I personally never had any problems getting BPs to take rats.

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Yes, and the poll did not ask which was better, it asked what people chose to feed.

My point is, if someone has chosen to feed mice only, we are doing a disservice to them telling them that rats are better. They may have no problems with feeding three or four mice to an adult bp vs. one rat.

Before I started breeding rats myself, the rats available for sale were too large for my collection, so mice worked better for me. Since I have personally observed how well my guys have grown on mice, I'm not too distressed over the ones that still prefer mice over rats.

Bottom line, my kids get what they'll eat, be it a mouse or a rat, and I'm not going to worry myself that the ones eating mice are somehow losing out nutritionally - they aren't. I see no difference in growth rate between the ones eating mice and the ones eating rats.

Hi, I'm new around here but feel this may add something to the discussion. This same topic came up on a corn snake forum I belong to and someone provided the OP with this link.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/zoo/Who...nal02May29.pdf

Melissa

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Originally Posted by silverdust

Hi, I'm new around here but feel this may add something to the discussion. This same topic came up on a corn snake forum I belong to and someone provided the OP with this link.

http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/zoo/Who...nal02May29.pdf

Melissa

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Thank you for that link, I've not seen it before. But we're still back to square one. We don't know the nutritional requirements of ball pythons, so they may only require a fraction of what a mouse provides and so would meet its nutritional requirements with either prey.

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Originally Posted by westcoastjungle

I like rats because you can feed smaller rats which are incapable of harming a snake while large mouse that is still smaller is smarter, can defend itself or run like the ****ens! Escapees suck!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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That and I hate having to wait a week for the mice to grow to appropriate size before I can feed it off.