Can my 400 gram male take a small rat ?

His normal feeding routine was two pups every 5-7 days, now that he's getting bigger I tried to replace one of the pups with a weaned rat, so 1 weaned + one pup, but he wouldn't eat the pup.


My rodent weights are as follows : weanlings 32-35 pups 23-28 smalls 50-60.

I know I'm supposed to feed around 15-20% of his body weight, but how should I get that food into him ? multiple pups, one small rat, a weaned and a fuzzy or something ?

Thanks!

I would just feed one weanling, 10-15% of his body weight every week is fine at that size. Once he gets up to 500 grams a small rat weekly will work.

I agree with bcr229. A weanling every 5 days should suffice for now. In fact I usually don't bump up to a small until they are pushing a weight in the upper 600 gram range.

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Originally Posted by bcr229

I would just feed one weanling, 10-15% of his body weight every week is fine at that size. Once he gets up to 500 grams a small rat weekly will work.

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He is actually around 480, I just got a good recent weight on him. I'm going to go ahead and feed him a weanling and maybe an extra fuzzy if he wants it on a 5 day schedule, and I'll switch him to smalls at around 600-650. Thanks !

Quote:

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Originally Posted by speedycat222

He is actually around 480, I just got a good recent weight on him. I'm going to go ahead and feed him a weanling and maybe an extra fuzzy if he wants it on a 5 day schedule, and I'll switch him to smalls at around 600-650. Thanks !

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That should be perfect :) I have a male that's at 500g and I still give him weaned rats because he is very long but doesn't have much girth so a small rat would leave quite a lump in his belly. So once he starts to bulk up a bit he will get moved up to small rats too. [emoji4]


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I normally start feeding my guys smaller rats around the 450-500 gram range. They seem to all do pretty good with that, and then slowly start moving them up to larger prey as they get into the 600's.

I didnt give mine small rats until 650 grams. Until then, I gave him 2 rat pups (nobody nearby had weanlings) until then.

Same deal with this boy, not terribly thin, but I can kind of see his spine. The only time he's ever denied a rat is when I offered him a pup after he already had a weanling, so I'm not surprised he's 480 already.

I feed mine a rat that is the girth of the body. I have a 360 gram GHI male eating smalls right now no problem. Once he hits about 600 its on to mediums.

I feed my spider who is 480g a small rat around 60g every 5 days. Monster Eater lol.

A lot of this convo is based on what we consider a small rat. When I think of a small rat I think closer to the 100g mark. Some people consider smalls to be in the 50g range. Anyway after all of that honestly if I had a 400g male I would be feeding it 40-60g rats at the most. Its a male you dont need to push feed..they dont need to pack on the lbs like females

My smalls run 50-80, weans around 30-40. I'm not terribly worried about bulking him up, I just would rather feed him one rat instead of two pups. He just denied his first ever meal in the two months he's been with me, but I'll let that slide because he's been a champ so far.


My 580 female denied a small rat, and then a weaned, but I'm attributing that to bad timing because the day I offered the small she was deep in blue, and 5 days later when I offered the weaned there was a gift for me in her tub in addition to her shed, so I didn't expect her to want to eat.