Out of curiosity...

I was wondering if any breeders have noticed a correlation between clutch sizes and what the Bp eats, either mice or rats? Or is it more on the size of the female?

Its has to do with the size of the female. I have seen a really tiny bit of evidence that makes me think that age is also a contributing factor but not enough to say so with any confidence.

Most owners I have talked to consider mice to be junk food, but it does not determine clutch size. Maybe the rate of animal growth is affected by food item.

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Originally Posted by Velrys

Most owners I have talked to consider mice to be junk food...

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Not necessarily the case, nutritionally speaking. It's more of a case that a single mouse isn't a large enough prey item for a reasonably sized ball python. It takes at least three adult mice to equal one small rat, and double that to equal a medium rat. It simply doesn't make sense to start a ball python off on a food item that won't be the most appropriate choice for when it gets larger. This is only magnified by the quirkiness of their eating habits.

http://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.asp

Some information in here that addresses this subject.

The average of domestic mice under 10g is 5.76 kcal/gram which beats out rat's 5.3kcal/gram under 10g. However after 10g rat's 5.55 kcal/gram wins over mouse's 5.25 kcal/gram. Since I'm not a big fan of getting BPs used to one animal then switching to another and because 10g is the pinky category of rats (what you would feed a hatchling BP, and the smallest possible rat you can get) there would never be any reason that feeding mice would be better than feeding rats.

Oh no I didn't want to spark another mouse vs rat debate, but just curious if anyone has noticed a difference, thank you 😁

Genetics seem to play the biggest factor, Females that lay lots of eggs tend to make females that lay lots of eggs.

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Originally Posted by ritual

Oh no I didn't want to spark another mouse vs rat debate, but just curious if anyone has noticed a difference, thank you 

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Ha ha! It's not a debate when both parties agree with each other. ;)

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Originally Posted by Eric Alan

Ha ha! It's not a debate when both parties agree with each other. ;)

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this is true,

and no i am not started a debate now but i have to say,

i just recently started to get some rats breeding and my snakes have been on mice cause it is easier for me where i live to get adult mice then small rats.

that being said it is realy hard to find adult rats to start a breeding group, all i could get where 1 adult rat female, 3 sub adult rat females and 1 sub adult rat male.

and that male being alot smaller then the 1 adult rat female i have isnt getting what he wants from that female....

so i am still stuck on feeding mice to most of my bp's

only my arange ghost get's rats atm as i have found a couple of rats that are about 80-90 grams.

oh up-date,

i just did some cage cleaning and it seems the small male did get his way with the bigger female :P

Congrats on starting your colony

haha thx, wish it was as easy as it is with mice but... realy hard to find adult rats here.. :(

but yeah i am happy i finally got atleast 1 female "pregnant"