feeding mice

So I've been fighting with tinkerbell since last November trying to get her to feed consistently, and its gone terrible. So today I gave in and tried a live mouse, well today I witnessed what appeared to be a whole different snake! She started stalking as soon as she saw it, struck at it (a first), and seemed to not care that I was watching. So being as excited as I was I ran to the store and picked up 2 more. Again she downed them like nothing!

So I'm going to stick with mice for a bit to make up for lost time, and hopefully make weigh by November. Shes 900 g right now, so how much do I feed her?

If you want to feed rats...why don't you just scent the rats with mice? I have to do that with two of my females who were VERY picky and inconsistent...one of them is now taking f/t weaned rats scented with mice and has doubled in size...just food for thought :)

I've tried that a few times with no luck. I know mice are far from ideal, but she's a pain in the butt! Lol

That's interesting. Well I'd try to match the amount by grams...same grams in mice that you would feed a rat...does that make sense? lol.

I just wanted to add, that my spider female who refused so many times unless it was a mouse...would only eat ONE mouse per feeding. If I offered a second one she'd stick her nose up at it. That's when I decided to thaw out a mouse in the same bag as a rat pup, and heat them up together so it was nice and smelly...and she's been eating scented rats since. Good luck! Hopefully she's not as picky as mine was lol.

Thanks!

anybody know a good rule of thumb for what percent of the snakes mass to shoot for in prey size? I usually just go buy size, but cant do that with mice.

like for example if shes 900g and 10% is the ideal then she should have a 90g meal.

Anybody?

Rule of thumb is generally 10-15%, but it becomes less accurate as they get bigger and it should probably be slightly less.

Cool, thanks

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Originally Posted by bpandrew

So I'm going to stick with mice for a bit to make up for lost time, and hopefully make weigh by November. Shes 900 g right now, so how much do I feed her?

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I would NOT suggest trying to Power Feed her just to "Make Weight". Feed her consistently and breed her next Season.

Snakes grow at the rate they grow don't over feed her just stick with 10-15% rule of thumb. Royals tend to imprint on prey they will feed others but some convert with difficulty. Get her feeding that is important after a good while like november if she is still feeding easily on mice then try a mouse smaller than norman and fuzzy rat and see if she will take it. I have one that seems intimidated by rats or something mice no problem and small rats no problem but at 10% for get it. I give him 5 or 6% but weekly rather than every two weeks.