How often to feed her?

Hi everyone,

I bought a scale and weighed my 3 month old girl today, she's 169 grams.

I have been feeding her f/t adult mice once a week (she last ate on tuesday).

Local store is sold out of f/t rat pups so I'm stuck with adult mice for now- should I be feeding her more than once a week?

I've been looking at charts online but of course they all say different things.

thanks

I fed twice a week/every 4 days at that size and age.

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Originally Posted by CptJack

I fed twice a week/every 4 days at that size and age.

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I agree with this you can do either 4-5 days at that size and she should be a happy camper [emoji4]


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Yup I feed a fuzzy rat every 5 days at that size, continuing to feed appropriate sized meals every 5 days until they reach 500 grams. Then I switch to every 7 days.

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Originally Posted by JPR

...appropriate sized meals...

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Since you have a scale, appropriate sized translates to roughly 10-15% of her body weight at each meal (for her, 17-26 grams - rat pups or adult mice).

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Originally Posted by Eric Alan

Since you have a scale, appropriate sized translates to roughly 10-15% of her body weight at each meal (for her, 17-26 grams - rat pups or adult mice).

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Thank you. And you second the every 5 days until 500 grams pattern?

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Originally Posted by Jessimica

Thank you. And you second the every 5 days until 500 grams pattern?

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Personally, I feed the little ones every 4 days until the 500ish gram mark. Basically, when they start eating small rats they get put on the once/week schedule with the rest of the group.

Thanks everyone, she eagerly took the mouse I offered her tonight.

The mouse only weighs in at about 15 grams and she weighs about 169, so I'll have to find something slightly bigger for her pretty quick I think...

For now I will feed her every 4 days.

I fed my baby "on demand " she let's me know when she's hungry by "hunting" in her enclosure. So about every five days. She is 5 months and 389g. I feed her 2 large mice every feed.


Molly & Steve
0.1 Normal BP. PRECIOUCESS
0.1 Normal Columbian BCI. LUNA

You should feed 15% of her body weight. I was feeding mine 20% bc she was a hog. And you should feed every 4 or 5 days

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Originally Posted by Jessimica

should I be feeding her more than once a week?

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Is she growing? Is she healthy? Are you happy with the growth rate? You don't need to feed her more than once a week. People like to say you "should feed x often" but really it's just you "can feed x often if you want".

Once mine reach adult mice (90g to 100g usually) they get switched to once a week. The growth slows down but they grow, they grow steadily and they're all fine.

If you want to feed more than once a week at that size you can, but it's not needed if you're happy feeding once a week and the snake is healthy and growing.

i agree with 200xth,

they dont need to be fed every 4 or 5 days, once a week is fine, they will just grow a little slower.

as what the size would be to feed her i would say get adult mice, they are between 25 and 30 grams and your BP should be able to down those fairly easy.

on a side note,

Do not always go with what your snake tells you, i have a Super Fire and a Lesser Pastel that have the feeding response of a Retic (yes i owned retics) and they are ready to take another mouse/rat any time i would offer it. racing through their tubs and stuff.

I do feed mine once every 4 or 5 days, even my bigger girl who is over 600 grams atm gets an rat every 4-5 days and she seems to be doing fine. I am feeding her still on that same sceule cause she was a problem feeder when she was a hatchling and this is just some catching up, especially also because i want to get some extra weight to her incase she decides to stop eating once she hits that 1000 gram wall.

every one keeps their own scedule and that is ok, just make sure she doesnt get fat.

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Originally Posted by ARBallMorphs

i agree with 200xth,

they dont need to be fed every 4 or 5 days, once a week is fine, they will just grow a little slower.

as what the size would be to feed her i would say get adult mice, they are between 25 and 30 grams and your BP should be able to down those fairly easy.

on a side note,

Do not always go with what your snake tells you, i have a Super Fire and a Lesser Pastel that have the feeding response of a Retic (yes i owned retics) and they are ready to take another mouse/rat any time i would offer it. racing through their tubs and stuff.

I do feed mine once every 4 or 5 days, even my bigger girl who is over 600 grams atm gets an rat every 4-5 days and she seems to be doing fine. I am feeding her still on that same sceule cause she was a problem feeder when she was a hatchling and this is just some catching up, especially also because i want to get some extra weight to her incase she decides to stop eating once she hits that 1000 gram wall.

every one keeps their own scedule and that is ok, just make sure she doesnt get fat.

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I weighed my adult mice and they are 15g.

Good grief, no need for a scale :colbert: At that age it can take adult mice, or rat pups when you can get them again :gj:

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Originally Posted by albinos_rule

Good grief, no need for a scale :colbert: At that age it can take adult mice, or rat pups when you can get them again :gj:

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So - if you've never fed a snake before, and have no idea what a rat pup is, why not use a scale when one is available to you? I'm not saying the OP fits in this category, but there are plenty of people that do. No need to wave the finger at using a learning tool. Heck, I still use a scale to this very day for every single one of my animals - I could tell you exactly what size feeder everyone's eaten since day one in my care. Sure, it may be overkill (OK, yes, it's overkill), but I've never been one to have a lack of information available to me if I should ever need it.

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Originally Posted by albinos_rule

Good grief, no need for a scale :colbert: At that age it can take adult mice, or rat pups when you can get them again :gj:

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Oh geeze. I just did it because I was curious. It's seriously not that big of a deal.

To others: I've kept milk snakes for many years but obviously not every species isn't the same so why not kick me for researching, right? Sigh.

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Originally Posted by jessimica

...so why not kick me for researching, right? Sigh.

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;)

ihm an mouse that weighs 15 grams isnt an adult.

i got female mice that have had a nest and after their youngh where 20 grams the females still where about 35-40 grams.

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Originally Posted by ARBallMorphs

ihm an mouse that weighs 15 grams isnt an adult.

i got female mice that have had a nest and after their youngh where 20 grams the females still where about 35-40 grams.

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They are so tiny. I feel like I am being scammed by the pet store but I live in the middle of nowhere so it's hard to find f/t, let alone live.

I'm just making do with what I can until rat pups are back in stock.

It sounds like they're selling you smallmice, not adults. Check out this size chart from an online f/t seller.

If you can switch her to f/t you might be able to save money by ordering in bulk, it's what I do and I love the ease of picking out the size I need from the freezer. The only tricky part is figuring out how many of each size to order (I get about 3-4 months worth at a time).

If you can't switch to f/t, you might want to consider buying the mice in advance and "fattening them up" before feeding, but that could be more trouble than it's worth.

Alot of petstores label them 1 size bigger then they should be to increase profit


Large rat=med
med= small
small=weangling
weangling= crawler.... You get it, Best bet if hes on FT just buy from a local breeder (much cheaper/better quality usualy) and You can buy a bag of 10-20 for the cost of 4-5 at pet store prices.

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Originally Posted by artgecko

It sounds like they're selling you smallmice, not adults. Check out this size chart from an online f/t seller.

If you can switch her to f/t you might be able to save money by ordering in bulk, it's what I do and I love the ease of picking out the size I need from the freezer. The only tricky part is figuring out how many of each size to order (I get about 3-4 months worth at a time).

If you can't switch to f/t, you might want to consider buying the mice in advance and "fattening them up" before feeding, but that could be more trouble than it's worth.

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She is already on f/t. The box I buy is labeled as "adult mice" but they're small. I'm hoping rat pups come back in stock soon.