too big to feed?

well i weighed my pastel yesterday, and hes not at 356g. Now during feeding day he destroys his meal, and lately hes showed to still be hungry afterwards. I mean he has always done this, but more so now, than in the beginning. I feed him every 5 days, and its usually a 30-35g white mice. When i first got him almost 3 months ago he was 129g, so he has doubled in weight.

Now here is my problem, i have basically 4 sources of where to buy mice/rats here in NYC. the first 2 sources are mom and pop petstores, the problem with those are, they have alot of variety compared to petland, such as they have black mouses, grey, white, etc etc, but basically its the same, they will have feeder mice which are generally 30-38g, and then they will have another section apart with little bigger mice that are around the 45-55gram mark im looking for, but when i ask for them they always tell me "no those arent for sale because there pregnant" then they have small rats which i think are too big, they look to be like 70grams and up, then of course they have jumbo rats, which obvisouly are too big. My third source is petland. Which is pretty plain, they have small mice (30-38g) medium rats (70g +) and jumbos. Then i have a 4th source but thats a no go which is a breeder of ASF's. And he woudl definetley be able to accomodate me with a mouse i need, he will even weigh it for me and all, but its a ASF, and i dont want my pastel hooked on them. SO hes pretty much out of the question.

So what should i do, keep feeding him the 30-38g mouses until he gets big enough, or go crazy and feed him a medium rat which are 70g and definetley bigger than the widest part of his body?

BTW to date, i have never fed him a mouse that has left a lump. And the biggest mouse i fed him was 39grams.

Yousnake should be able to eat a small rat about 53g, can the mom & pop store order them for you?

no, its not like that, i mean the mom and pop shops just buy a whole bunch of mice and they just breed like crazy, there is like 6 different tanks all with a different variety, a whole bunch of small mice, in another tank u have some big ones and small one, a bunch of pinkies everywhere, there not very organized, but the ones i see that seem to be that perfect size and weight, always are "pregnant" or something like that, either that or they are too big, i was at petland the other day and i saw a small "rat" that seemed like it would do the job, but i dont want to give him something too big, or something hell wont take maybe. Today is feeding day and im going to try the mom and pop shop again, and see if i can find something perfect, but its like everytime i go i just end up making the same descision and asking them to give be the biggest they can find in the small mice tank, which ends up being just liek 35g give or take....

Then feed 2 , until you can get rats of appropriate size, or your snake gets large enough to eat the 70+g rats :)

My 400-500 grams balls are taking weaned rats, which are much larger than full grown adult mice. I say if you can't get appropriate sized prey due to the availability you should feed multiple mice, since one is not enough.

These two ladies have you covered. :gj: Multiple smaller items are nutritionally the same as one big one so maybe it is time to offer two! Keep up the good work. I remember when you first joined.

Regards,

B

According to THIS SITE the "Appropriate sized item is a prey item that has a girth 1.5 times the girth of your snake."

have you considered buying your feeders online. a quick search should yield several places you can order what ever size feeder you like for probably far less than you are paying at any pet store. of course you would have to switch to frozen thawed if you haven`t already.

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Originally Posted by RetiredJedi

According to THIS SITE the "Appropriate sized item is a prey item that has a girth 1.5 times the girth of your snake."

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wow that site does say that. of course it also outlines a feeding schedual for snakes regardless of speicies. so i guess baby Naja`s require the same amount of food as green tree pythons. hmmm:confused:

Appropriate size prey is subjective. Just like two human beings of the same size can eat more or less food than each other, ball pythons of the same size are comfortable with different size prey. You could safely feed two mice and make up the size of one rat, or find one rat and feed it instead.

Like our two resident ladies said, if you can't find one prey item that suits your python, go for two smaller ones. At the same time, don't be afraid to try a SLIGHTLY larger than recommended prey item, because your python might be comfortable with it. I'm not suggesting that you feed giant prey to babies, you need to use your discretion, but I am saying that at heart these are wild animals, and you need to trust a little bit in their own instincts as far as how much they want to eat, and what size they want the food to be.

ok so today i went to 2 of the 3 mom and pop pet stores i go to. One of them had what they called "small rats" which in my opinion was just a large small mice, so i then went to the other place. They had pretty much the same size "small rat" but for alot cheaper so i just said ok ill just go with that, also it seemed as though they were larger than the regular mice i give to my BP, such as the fur was longer and the eyes were bigger. Anyways i get home, and i do the usual, take out the water dish and seconds after my bp has his head out and looking up, he know the deal, mean while i weight the "small rat" and it turns out hes just 41g, so not that much bigger than the usual 35-38 grammers. and 2 dollars more. Oh well.

Honestly im just going to feed him these "small rats" until he gets bigger. I mean i understand the 2 mice deal, but i have a good routine going for a while with my pastel, and he has never refused a meal and has been a strong feeder, feeding twice in my opinion is a big change. It goes from him being used to getting his one meal and thats it, to him getting his meal, then after he is done getting another meal, which means eventually he will get used to expecting a meal twice in a feeding, which would be bad when i get back to feeding just one meal.

Simple Man

Thanks, yes yes, i remember my first bout with my old normal bp, and the fustrations, i have learned alot since then. This website is kind of like school, i graduated, and now i know everything i need to know! Did u see my setup now? Everything a BP needs, i have dotted all my i's and crossed my t's. My only problem now is, there is a heat wave here in NYC and the ambient temp is 92 degrees in the tank, and thats with the herpstat/UTH disconnected AND the infrared bulb off. How to lower temps in a setup, that must be a new one. On the otherside of things, since this heat wave, he has been having half his body almost outside his cold side hide most of the day, except in the morning when he is fully in (prob sleeping)

oh forgot to answer some question. F/T is out of the question, not only because i'm unwilling to have a pack of frozen rats (rodents to me are the most disgusting animals on earth) next my my t-bone steaks and pork chops in my freezer, but also i will not go thru the process of "thawing" them out in hot water, and also im a strong believer of feeding my snake live prey, just like they do in the wild.

And as far as that web site, according to it i should try a "medium rat" from petland, because they pretty much are about 1.5 to 2 bigger than the girth of my BP. Even today, he fed on the biggest "mouse/ small rat" yet, a 41g, and it STILL did not leave a lump at all.....

I'd say you can move up a notch or two in food size.

AT 300+ grams my young-uns get 50-60 gram rats. After 500g of snake weight I bump them to the bigger "small rats" usually 70-80 grams. Past 1000g of snake weight I move them to medium rats (90-100g or so) if they will take them. MOving up to the medium rats doesn't seem to put weight on them any quicker though, and often medium rats are BARELY bigger than small ones. I buy my rats in BULK frozen (I have a couple hundred in the freezer right now) from Rodent Pro, your milage may vary. :D

ok, so im back at the mom and pop shop again, this time i buy there "3.50" small rat vs the "3 dollar" small rat they have. It only looks a little bit bigger than the 3 dollar one but i say what the hell, when i get home and weigh him hes 71g!, i was like oh crap, and took a chance, well threw him in there and my BP hesitated for a bit, infact usually, he just goes straight for them and strikes right away, this time, his first strike he missed, and second time, the rat passed in front of his face while he was in his S shape and he did not strike, finally after the third time the "rat" pass by him he grabbed him, good head shot too, however the rat did bit down hard on the side of his jaw, (did not see any blood, and did not pierce the skin though) it took him a few seconds to get the rats teeth off him after he was dead!

Here some pics, does this small rat look to be too big? Also, at a 71g small rat, in the last picture, its a pic of him after he finished swallowing him, it STILL did not leave a lump.. So is it safe to say that a 71 grams is good for my bp? even though by that 15% rule it should only be 50-55


http://www.imagebam.com/image/3f31f7142579066

http://www.imagebam.com/image/349d34142579141][IMG]http://thumbnails44.imagebam.com/14258/349d34142579141.jpg

http://www.imagebam.com/image/cb7ccc142579144

Most of the issues I have seen from live rats is when the snake is not interested and left in there overnight. The same thing happened to my big bp and left no blood he even had the same trouble as yours.

My boa ate a 110 gram rat one time when he weighed 400 grams. The rat did not look that big in the store and when I saw him with it I was like uh oh! But he had a lump and was just fine.

yes, this is the third time my BP has been bit, the last time the small rats teeth were still sunken into my BP until he moved after he finished constricting and i literally saw the teeth unsink from my BP's scales, but not dents, or pierced skin...

He seems like hes full, he hasent kept his head out of his hide after feeding like he usually does. He went into his hide and kept himself in there without popping his head out, i guess finally he has that "im full" feeling. My issue now, is should i keep feeding him such large rats? and by large i mean the whole 15% to his weight thing, because this small rat was more like 25%, but he took him down like a champ....

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Originally Posted by FrankieCarbone

yes, this is the third time my BP has been bit, the last time the small rats teeth were still sunken into my BP until he moved after he finished constricting and i literally saw the teeth unsink from my BP's scales, but not dents, or pierced skin...

He seems like hes full, he hasent kept his head out of his hide after feeding like he usually does. He went into his hide and kept himself in there without popping his head out, i guess finally he has that "im full" feeling. My issue now, is should i keep feeding him such large rats? and by large i mean the whole 15% to his weight thing, because this small rat was more like 25%, but he took him down like a champ....

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Im finding this thread very interesting, sorry I don't have anything useful to add, but im having similar questions to you. My BP is eating multiple large/jumbo mice and I want him on rats.

so i guess everybody agrees that the small rat in that picture is reasonable sized vs my BP's size?

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Originally Posted by FrankieCarbone

so i guess everybody agrees that the small rat in that picture is reasonable sized vs my BP's size?

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When mine was at 280 grams, I started to feed him small rats. They weighed in at 50 grams a piece. They looked way to big for him, but had no problem swallowing them. I buy mine from petsmart.