rats vs. mice

after 3 weeks of trying to feed rats to my 2 year old male bp i decided to try mice last night. He ate two of them w/o hesitation.

i guess he has a taste for mice, but my question is...

eventually do bp's have to start eating rats(nutrition reasons)?
or can you keep feeding them multiple mice forever?

any suggestions on how to switch from f/t mice to f/t rats? i'd like to switch so i don't have to feed two or three mice every feeding.

thanks guys.
zach

Try skipping a few feedings so hes nice and hungry, then try giving him a rat, if he doesnt take it, then try scenting a rat with a mouse (rub the mouse on the rat) and then since it smells more like a mouse he will most likely eat it


Good luck ! :)

I read that when your ball gets big enough to feed on a good size rat that it only has to eat once every three weeks, is this true?

Hmm, i really dont think so, 3 weeks sounds like a long time

My snakes arent really that big, my biggest is only three feet and she eats medium ADULT rats and i feed her once a week.

A letting the rat run around in mouse bedding does wonders.....ask the shop where you go to scoop up the corner bedding that the mice generally pee on and put that in with the rat......you're snake will probably hit it w/o hesitation...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Andrew00

I read that when your ball gets big enough to feed on a good size rat that it only has to eat once every three weeks, is this true?

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Most people would go by once every two weeks, but three weeks would still be fine for a male or pet female.

Weekly feedings with rats really aren't 100% necessary, especially in adult snakes, and especially when feeding 100+ gram rodents like medium sized rats. And remember, ball pythons have a natural diet of rodents the resemble gerbils and degus- so in the wild they have the multiple-smaller-type rodent diet, as opposed to a rat picked by us that exactly matches their girth.

A ball python will be fine living it's entire life eating mice. I have several 2500+ gram girls that have never touched a rat and lay nice big clutches of eggs every year.

As far as rats go, there is really no need to ever feed a ball python of any size anything bigger than a small rat once a week. Feeding larger meals just makes them more prone to not eat on a consistent basis.

-adam

Yeah I'd have to agree with Adam's last point, just went through a 2 month fast with female who had last eaten a meal that was probably wayy too big for her.....

Adam, as you know I just picked up one of your babies, do you think I should just feed him mice and see what happens? I mean I have another BP that eats rats, I wonder if it'd be wise to have a mouse-eater as well to compare and contrast....

Rat eaters will grow faster and be less of a pain in the a$$ down the road. Do you have any idea how many mice a 2000 gram male can eat in an afternoon?

Ball pythons can be big time imprint feeders, if you offer him a mouse now, he may be stuck on them for the next 20 years. I would stick with the rats. He should be on at least large fuzzies if not small weaned by now. If he still looks hungry after the first, feed him a second one.

-adam

Ok cool thanks for the advice......that being said, do you have any explanation for my female bp that came off of a fast with a small mouse and immediately ate a f/t rat right after? I already know she's a wierd snake but that situation just confuses me.

i always thought you should feed your bp every 7 to 10 days. well if your feeding mice you can feed more often but when you start feeding rats one every 7 to 10 days

Just as sometimes they can be imprint feeders, sometimes they are just really hungry! Each ball python can very be different. I have some that will eat a gerbil, rat, and mouse all on the same day, I have others that only eat mice, some that only eat dark colored rats, etc.

She was the one that ate the really big rat right? .... If so, now she's feeling better and wants to EAT!!! That's a good thing, she'll probably be a good feeder like that for you for a long time. Keep the meals on the smaller side and you shouldn't have a problem.

-adam

Ok a small rat weighs in around 50-75 grams....which is about what an adult bp should take in per week under normal circumstances....so I look at it like this: feed 50-75 grams of rodent every 7 days. Whether you do that with mice, rats, gerbils, children, whatever, does that sound about right?

Ummmm .... I'm really not that technical about it ... I let the snake tell me what it needs.

I don't think that you can boil it down to a perfect equation. You just have to observe your snakes behavior and figure out what works best.

For an adult ball python, start with small rats and see how it does. If the day after feeding day your snake is cruising around the cage every week, you might try 2 small rats and see what happens. I have some snakes that take 2 meals every other week and one meal the rest of the time. There are no "rules", each snake is different. The fun part is figuring your snake out!

-adam

has anyone tried thawing a rat and a mouse in the same bag??
has it worked?
is there any other way to scent a rat with a mouse besides finding mouse bedding to keep the rat in?

thanks

Yes, people do that, they say it works very well.

You dont have to get mouse bedding, sometimes just rubbing the mouse on the rat will work just fine.

Um but thats way easier than having a rat AND a mouse and only feeding one of them off....bedding doesn't require a seperate rodent......

nice way of thinking about it and cheaper

Wow i didn't know that a snake would eat more then one mouse at once. I fugured that once they went through the trouble to get once mouse down they wouldn't think about eating again right away. Learn something new everyday...