First Rat Isnt a Charm

Gave Plissken his first rat bout 30 min ago, thawed it out in a ziplock bag with a mouse,than I rubbed the mouse all over it, but so far all hes done is sniff. I know hw can take it down its real small for a rat. Lately hes been a real fuss pot ,he doesnt strike any more like he did his first two feedings and now he wants the lights off (pain in my a#$)

Well Ill let yall know how it gos Ive just given him his treasured privacy :?

LOL.....hopefully some privacy will be all you need to get him to eat that rat. It's not uncommon for them to stop the strike/wrap routine when they realize their prey is already dead.

you think I should give him the little mouse in a few hours if he refuses to eat the rat?

I wouldn't....I'd wait a week and give him another mouse-scented rat...so long as you're sure it's a good size. Rat or mouse though, I'd wait until the next scheduled feeding day. A stronger-than-usual appetite may help him decide the rat doesn't look too fishy after all. :)

Yup, and you can save this mouse for the next rat as well and save a dollar. :)

At the risk of sounding like a real pain in the neck. I just want to make sure Im not out of my mind offering a rat at this time.

The rat is no larger than 1 1/2 times the thickness of Plissken but it is around 5 1/4 inches long nose to butt and its got some weight to it. Plissken is just about 2 feet and again unless my eyes are playing tricks on me hes just about as fat as the rat.

Well, I don't know. You say the rat is 1 1/2 times the thickness of Plissken...then you say Plissken is just about as fat as the rat. It's hard to judge without actually being there with the snake and the rodent. But it could very well be that if the rat is larger than he's used to, he may refuse it...even if he is technically capable of eating it, he may not be hungry enough to work that hard at his meal, yet.

And that's pretty good sized jump. He might well be able to get it down, but I tend to have more success with making changes with my guys if i can find a way to make them gradually, which you should be able to do in this case by offering jumbo mice or rat pups for a few feedings. I suspect that a 5.25" long rat is a bit much for a 24" snake, though.

Fort that rat over this way, my greedy little goober with gobble it down :twisted:

Our ball Lucy is 9 months old, and 34 inches...she still eats mice.. we feed live and raise our own..although she has eaten gerbil and rat pups on occasion..once in a while she'll eat 2 or even 3, but 1 every 5 to 7 days is her norm...why switch to rats at all?

Well, she won't always be small enough to be kept healthy on one mouse a week...but as I said before, the debate is still open about whether multiple mice or a single rat is more beneficial. If you breed your own mice and feel comfortable feeding them by the handful in the future...then there's probably nothing wrong with it.

I figure eventually we may have to switch to rats as she grows..but so far so good.. she has doubled her length and I gave up on weighing (scale got too small!) once she got past 500 gm (10x her original wt when we got her)..hubby has a hard enuf time with the mice.. i don't know what he'll do if I say we need to grow rats! I guess I should try to switch her to F/T.. but I have so many mice!! Maybe when I get down to just 4 left , I try the switch.. then perhaps i can buy F/T rats in bulk.

SheSkweezes....I deleted the accidental double-post. :)

As for mice...I guess so long as you stop keeping males and females together, you may eventually be down to four. LOL! From what I hear, rats are actually much cleaner, smell better, and are more fun to keep than mice...but I'm not speaking from personal experience.

You may have a harder time switching if you switch both the rodent species AND the method of feeding (live to f/t) at the same time. But you can always start pre-killing and freezing your own mice. That's another way to help with the excess mice, too. Freeze 'em and save 'em for later. :)

pray tell.. how does one pre-kill? I'm awful sqeamish about purposely killing any animal..i dont think i can do it..

I'm the same way. I usually feed f/t, but got stuck with some live mice that I tried once...the snake wouldn't eat them. I took them back to the petstore (returned w/o a refund! LOL) rather than kill them myself. The other day, though, I put some live pinkies in the freezer...felt horrible about even that!

The easiest way that I've heard (and one I may need to buckle-down and do someday) is to use dry ice to suffocate them. You put the dry ice in a small container (preferrably one with sides too tall for the mice to get over) and set that container into a larger one that can be closed. Put the mice into the larger container as well...pour some water over the dry ice, then close it all up. The smaller your over-all container is, the more effective and effecient this will be. You may need some ventilation to allow building gasses to escape, too.

I hear it's very quick and painless...they just go to sleep. But if I ever do this...I'm not planning on using any transparent containers! :shock:

good idea...thanks! I will keep it for future reference!

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Originally Posted by JLC

From what I hear, rats are actually much cleaner, smell better, and are more fun to keep than mice...but I'm not speaking from personal experience.

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I am, and it's the darn dirty truth! :lol: Seriously, though, I've had both as pets and bred mice to feed off to a bp, and rats are much better to have in the house. I'm less happy about feeding them to bp's, though.