Need some advice.

As I have mentioned before, I rescued a Burm that was in pretty bad shape. He is still pretty darn under weight but is eating like there is no tomorrow. He has loose skin like he had Gastric Bypass surgery or something. Anyway, I have had him about 5 or 6 weeks now. He's been getting one XL rats every Friday but the past two weeks he's been getting two XL rats. Even with these two rats he still appears hungry. Should I try rabbits? My prey supplier had rabbits up 1.5 pounds. Oh and all is f/t. So yes? No? On time for rabbits. To get an idea of his size he's a bit over 6ft and skinny, there is a pic of him in my albums on this site.

Rabbits seem a little large to me. I would say 2xl rats a week would do the trick. He will put weight on really fast in the next couple months.

how big is the burm? my retic is about 9ft and like 6-8" girth an he takes a 3-4lb rabbit once a week usually..... but he is also in good health...
i aslo have 1.5lb rabbits which are good for a 6ft burm... rabbits are far better for the snakes rats are mostly fat..

If the skin looks loose and wrinkly, it sounds like a stuck shed...

No not like a stuck shed, but very under weight. He's a bit over 6' and probably 4" in girth..... This is him the day we took him. He has put on a tad of weight, you can still see his bones but not as much....
http://i1221.photobucket.com/albums/...37660x1024.jpg

Wow, he looks terribly thin, I would get him checked for parasites at the vet... He could have all kinds of internal nasties that will make it hard for him to put on weight.

PS He looks dehydrated as well, a number of nice soaks would do him good.

That pic was over a month ago. He has been to the vet twice since then for a general health exam and progress check up.

Well he is very thin. I still think 2 rats will work for now. Let him get some weight on and then maybe a small rabbit. Make sure he gets plenty of water. It won't take long for him to put on weight. You just don't want to push him to hard. I know it's tempting to just let him eat all he wants but being that thin and that malnourished dumping to much food in to fast isn't healthy.

Thanks, advise taken :) he is doing so good, it is tempting to just let him eat all he wants since he was so deprived for so long.

small rabbit are still better less poo from rabbits as the use more of the animal

If you can get small rabbits, then try one or two. If not, offer 3 of the rats per feeding. Burms can stuff an amazing amount of food in themselves.
Any idea how old the fella is?

Chris

From what we can gather, he's about 3yrs

I really know nothing about berms, but I'd be careful with offering oversized meals. I think if anything feed average-large sized meal more frequently. Not sure how prone they are to regurging, but I'd assume with how skinny he is he wasn't fed properly, and maybe overfeeding him too quickly could cause more issues? Like I said, berms are not my thing, just figured I'd give my input. Good luck!

I'm gonna stick to my guns on the rats thing here. Agreed that if one animal can take oversized prey items it would be a Burm but in this case the Burm is obviously grossly underweight and in my opinion (and only my opinion) giving a prey item larger than the diameter of the animal is stressful and should be avoided in an animal that is already obviously physically stressed. It's not my animal and the OP can of course feed whatever he likes but if it were mine I would stick to rats for a while. As the old saying goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" it's eating well on the rats and gaining size why screw with the equation?

Along those same lines...everyone is saying that rabbits are better nutritionally than rats. Can anyone support this factually? Not just "I heard from a friend." I'm definitely not saying rats are better or rabbits are worse, I truly don't know. I simply have never heard that and would like some "in writing" proof to support the statement if anyone has it handy. Thanks

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottNBecky

Along those same lines...everyone is saying that rabbits are better nutritionally than rats. Can anyone support this factually? Not just "I heard from a friend." I'm definitely not saying rats are better or rabbits are worse, I truly don't know. I simply have never heard that and would like some "in writing" proof to support the statement if anyone has it handy. Thanks

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Here is a handy tool, a nutritional chart from Rodent Pro, has all sorts of feeder prey on it :)
http://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.asp

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ScottNBecky

I'm gonna stick to my guns on the rats thing here. Agreed that if one animal can take oversized prey items it would be a Burm but in this case the Burm is obviously grossly underweight and in my opinion (and only my opinion) giving a prey item larger than the diameter of the animal is stressful and should be avoided in an animal that is already obviously physically stressed. It's not my animal and the OP can of course feed whatever he likes but if it were mine I would stick to rats for a while. As the old saying goes "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" it's eating well on the rats and gaining size why screw with the equation?

Along those same lines...everyone is saying that rabbits are better nutritionally than rats. Can anyone support this factually? Not just "I heard from a friend." I'm definitely not saying rats are better or rabbits are worse, I truly don't know. I simply have never heard that and would like some "in writing" proof to support the statement if anyone has it handy. Thanks

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^ This is what I'm going with for the moment.


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