feeding issue

I have 4 BPs and they eat just fine. The problem is finding the.right sized food for them. I only have 1 petstore to get LIVE rodents from. The thing is they are not consistent. Sometimes i have to buy up to 10 mice because they are out of rats. My question is can i produce my own rats without having too much for thesnakes to eat?

You could always just buy a breeding group of say 1.6 for a start or get 2 breeding groups of 1.3, if all your snakes are different sized I would suggest getting 2 females per snake. So you could buy 4 1.2 groups.


now what would you do with that? If your snakes are all different seized you would want to introduce the groups at different times so as baby's are getting weaned you have more pinkies keep doing that and you should be good. Now what I would do if I were you, I would buy a few extra rodents and produce a bbut more then you need and freeze them off and sell them, that way you ccould make se money back to pay for needing and food.


Now the big investment in this, are you wanting to buy a rack or get one made for you? This is goin to be a big sum of money to drop just in rodents... Or you could just go with tanks but they're a pain in the but when it comes to cleaning. Hope I helped you out sorry for any spelling mistakes I'm on my iPhone. Gotta go to doctors now if you have any other questions just ask here and ill e glad to help.

I'm curious why you feed live? I don't have a problem with it. I just personally find f/t easy and ordering feeders in bulk has really turned out as the best option for me.

One day I would like to breed feeders but do not currently have the room.

I feed live because to me its faster than waiting to thaw out rodents. And yea the snakes are different sizes.

I feed live because thawing rodents takes time, and if there is a refusal..they go in the trash. It seems like such a waste of life :( I hate throwing away uneaten rats.

Live is just easier for me. If a snake doesn't eat, the rat goes to someone else or back in the bin for next week. No meaningless loss of life!

As for breeding, I breed ASF so I can't really help you with the rats, but you could start with one female rat per snake for a while and see how that goes, then expand if you need to.

I'm in the process of expanding my rat breeding. 9 tubs- 4 breeding tubs, 4 tubs for creating new groups/grow-outs, and one grow out tub for the remainders.

The most annoying part about rats is cleaning though. I feel like I spend more time with the rats than I do with the snakes! Haha

Im going to seriously consider breeding rats. I wish tjere were more stores that sold rodents.

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Originally Posted by Kaorte

I feed live because thawing rodents takes time, and if there is a refusal..they go in the trash. It seems like such a waste of life :( I hate throwing away uneaten rats.

Live is just easier for me. If a snake doesn't eat, the rat goes to someone else or back in the bin for next week. No meaningless loss of life!

As for breeding, I breed ASF so I can't really help you with the rats, but you could start with one female rat per snake for a while and see how that goes, then expand if you need to.

I'm in the process of expanding my rat breeding. 9 tubs- 4 breeding tubs, 4 tubs for creating new groups/grow-outs, and one grow out tub for the remainders.

The most annoying part about rats is cleaning though. I feel like I spend more time with the rats than I do with the snakes! Haha

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Why do you choose breeding ASF over just common rats? Curiosity lol

Regular rats get really big. My boa could eat them, but only my boa, and I don't need a bunch of frozen XL rats.

ASF are the perfect size for all of the kinds of snakes I keep (sans the boa, who gets leftover small rats and the occasional jumbo frozen)

ASF have huge litters and breed back to back just fine.

They don't really smell that bad.


The only negatives I can come across are that they are mean when they have babies, and they really like to chew.

*oh and they are legal and plentiful in my area. I have no supply problems.

So would you recommend that that i breed ASF instead of rats? My biggest male is 1000 grams but my other 3 are way below that.

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Originally Posted by Gerardo

So would you recommend that that i breed ASF instead of rats? My biggest male is 1000 grams but my other 3 are way below that.

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Its really just a personal choice. If you want to give asfs a shot no one will stop you! :) I personally like them but there are other people who think they are the devils spawn lol.

It just comes down to what works better for you. Also be aware that asfs are illegal in some areas so check your local laws.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

If the main reason you don't feed F/T is because it takes too long and/or it's easier, than breeding your own feeders is not the solution. The time and money you spend taking care of the feeders is way more than the time spent thawing. And unless you produce a lot of extra to sell, it's not going to save you any money either.

I breed rats and started with 2.4 for 6 snakes. I wind up with 50+ rats from each set of litters. This has resulted in a fairly full freezer rather quickly. I will say that the rat breeders have become my buddies and I rather enjoy selecting new hold backs and looking at all the colors and patterns that pop out. I have even been able to sell some as pets for 15 bucks a pop. If you wind up with excess and only want to feed live, you could always gas the extras and sell them locally. At 2 bucks a pop you'll end up paying for all the food and bedding for free and the whole thing will cost you nothing but time.

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Originally Posted by Sita

If the main reason you don't feed F/T is because it takes too long and/or it's easier, than breeding your own feeders is not the solution.

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I'm glad this was pointed out!

If I read correctly, you have 4 snakes. If you're feeding them once a week, that's 4 thawed rodents per week. At least for me, thawing a single rodent takes about 30 seconds to pull the baggie out of the freezer, and lay the rodent on a paper towel to thaw. I usually do this right as I'm preparing dinner for myself and my girlfriend, so there's no "wasted time" waiting for the rodent to thaw.

In fact, I'll even use the heat of the oven (we seem to always be cooking something in the oven on Monday nights) to warm up the rodent to 100* right before going to the snake cage for feeding. My piebald eats every time with zero hesitation.

I'd imagine that doing this for 4 rodents instead of one might add, at the most, a few minutes to the complete process. IMHO, it seems hard to figure how tackling a rat breeding project would somehow take less time. Especially since the rest of the week, you'd spend exactly 0 minutes on "maintaining" the frozen rodents while they sit in the freezer.

Interesting on the ASF maybe if I ever have the space I will breed those. I like less stink haha. Oh also, I have one snake right now that eats f/t and I hate the time it takes to thaw compared to live. But one thing that helped me a bit was putting the rat in the fridge the night before feeding day, then it pretty much thaws itself. Of course it's not at optimal temp but it's way faster than the original ratscicle.

To add another example of the time factor, on the weeks that every one of my snakes eat (7 total) it only takes 30 minutes max to feed everybody, and that's including the warming time. I put everything in the fridge the night before (1 minute), then when I'm ready to feed, the large rats go into warm water for about 10 minutes, then 5-10 more minutes in hot water, then feed (5 minutes). While that stuff is warming, the small rats/mice go into hot water for 5 minutes, then feed.

Compare that to the 6-7 hours per week of taking care of my feeder/breeder rats and mice: feeding, making sure they have water, cleaning cages, etc. Or even compare it to the time it takes to drive to the store every week, pick out feeders, check out, and drive home.

And yes, even though I breed my own, I only feed F/T or pre-killed (only 1 snake refuses F/T). That's because I don't want the slightest chance that someone could get bit, scratched, maimed, or heaven forbid, killed, by a feisty feeder.

It takes you 6 hours to take care of your rats during the week? I check on them a couple times a day and refill water like, 3 times a week. Weekly cleaning takes me MAX 2 hours.. So at most I spend 3 hours with my rats per week. It is probably less than that.

Everyone works differently I guess, but for me, thawing rats is the most annoying thing to do. Sure I put them in the fridge the night before... but the time consuming part happens when I have to dangle rats for 20+ snakes. Many of them don't strike right away so I am either dangling for 5 minutes per snake, or I leave it in overnight which results in some (not all) uneaten prey items. I don't refreeze any rats that I have already thawed out. Its just gross.

There comes a point in snake keeping where you either make the decision to breed your own feeders, or you just have a huge stock of F/T. Breeding works well for me because I always have the right size rat on hand. The only downside to breeding ASF is that I need to make sure any babies I produce will take a couple F/T rat pups before they are sold.

I feed live and it doesnt take 30 minutes. It takes about 5 minutes. And i dont mind caring for rats. I just find live feedings more convinient. Its the freshest food i can provide.

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It takes you 6 hours to take care of your rats during the week? I check on them a couple times a day and refill water like, 3 times a week. Weekly cleaning takes me MAX 2 hours.. So at most I spend 3 hours with my rats per week. It is probably less than that.

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Heh, I have a LOT of rats and mice! I breed not only for myself, but I sell extras to a friend of mine with 9 snakes, and whoever hits me up on Craigslist. I suppose some of that time is also spent deciding who to pair up next, as most of them are in a rotating system (instead of harem) for the health of the mothers.

I agree there comes a point when it IS worth the time and money spent breeding only for yourself. I suppose that number is different for everyone, but I'd think it's at least 10 snakes. Even if I had 7 snakes all the same size, it still wouldn't be worth it to breed my own if I wasn't selling extra.

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the time consuming part happens when I have to dangle rats for 20+ snakes

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I can understand the time factor of warming them up for a large number of snakes, but isn't the dangle time about the same amount of time it takes to supervise each feeding? One should never leave a live feeder and snake unattended until the rat is in coils and unable to bite.

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Originally Posted by Sita

I can understand the time factor of warming them up for a large number of snakes, but isn't the dangle time about the same amount of time it takes to supervise each feeding? One should never leave a live feeder and snake unattended until the rat is in coils and unable to bite.

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That is debatable. I don't sit there and stare at each one until they strike. I go down the line and drop the rat in. I listen for a "THUNK" and then I check once to make sure the rat is gone. If I don't hear a strike I give the snake about 15 minutes. If it isn't eaten within 15 minutes, then I take it out and offer it to someone else or put it back in rat tub.

A rat is not just going to attack the snake out of nowhere. And it surely won't do enough damage in 15 minutes. I just don't have hours to spend sitting there watching my 30+ snakes eat.

I've had a rat bite the snake on occasion and let me tell you, it isn't a big deal. Sometimes I can't even find where on the snake it got bit because its not even noticeable. Bites heal within one shed cycle.