Quantity of mice per feeding? Help please!

A little bit of background info, I have a 550g bp around 10 months old, has great appetite, never refused a meal, I always feed prekilled mice. I breed my own mice and have a consistent supply so far.

However, I have NO ACCESS to rats where I live so... I also breed my own gerbils but that's for the future.

My question is, if I were supposed to feed the bp 10-15% of her body weight (which means about 55g to 77g) every 7 days, and each mouse weighs 30g at its maximum, is it okay to feed 2 - 3 mice per feeding? Or am I doing it totally wrong and should be feeding ONE appropriate weighed food item instead?

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Perfectly fine to feed more than one prey item, as soon as one is down offer another. Its just more convenient to feed 1 appropriate sized rodent.

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Originally Posted by chrid16371

Perfectly fine to feed more than one prey item, as soon as one is down offer another. Its just more convenient to feed 1 appropriate sized rodent.

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Haha thanks chrid. Currently I'm feeding 3 one week, 2 on the next. Rinse and repeat. In the long run though, when she reaches say, 3000 grams, is it still a viable option to be feeding 10 mice then?

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Originally Posted by djstarfall

Haha thanks chrid. Currently I'm feeding 3 one week, 2 on the next. Rinse and repeat. In the long run though, when she reaches say, 3000 grams, is it still a viable option to be feeding 10 mice then?

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I'm not sure about 10 bc I've never heard of it. Maybe. Why don't you start breeding rats? You could sell off some since noone really has access to them.

Honestly you should never have to feed 10. At a young age bp need more nutrients to grow so you feed every 5 days with the 10% rule. Once they get bigger they don't need as much so some will feed a medium rat every 2 weeks but I see a lot of people will keep at a smalls once a week. So 2-4 mice would be about a small rat I'm guessing so you could keep feeding around that once a week instead of feeding 10 every 2 weeks.it all depends on the individual snake also.

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Originally Posted by chrid16371

I'm not sure about 10 bc I've never heard of it. Maybe. Why don't you start breeding rats? You could sell off some since noone really has access to them.

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It may be illegal where they live to have or raise rats.


OP, I think trying to feed 10 mice would not be a great idea. I regularly feed my Hoggy 4-5 mouse pinks and will give my big Blood a refused small or medium rat to go with her XXL rat but trying to get a snake to take 10 mice seems like a big task. Ive never seen or read about it being done but it just doesn't seem practical to me.

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Originally Posted by KMG

It may be illegal where they live to have or raise rats.


OP, I think trying to feed 10 mice would not be a great idea. I regularly feed my Hoggy 4-5 mouse pinks and will give my big Blood a refused small or medium rat to go with her XXL rat but trying to get a snake to take 10 mice seems like a big task. Ive never seen or read about it being done but it just doesn't seem practical to me.

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I'd never get done feeding if I had to do this. I'd spend all my time feeding snakes. The most I have ever heard being fed to a ball at one time was three but that said three would not be enough for one of my big girls. It would be like feeding popcorn.

I've done 2-3 mice at a time for snakes that steadfastly refuse to eat rats. It's not really the type of prey that is important and long as the quantity is sufficient. Nearly all of my ball pythons get small rats (average about 80-100g) Only the biggest girls get medium rats (over 120g) once in a while. I don't worry about the 10-15% by weight guideline, I go by what the snake looks like.

(in my opinion, most people feed their ball pythons too much. Mice are fine)

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Originally Posted by MarkS

I've done 2-3 mice at a time for snakes that steadfastly refuse to eat rats. It's not really the type of prey that is important and long as the quantity is sufficient. Nearly all of my ball pythons get small rats (average about 80-100g) Only the biggest girls get medium rats (over 120g) once in a while. I don't worry about the 10-15% by weight guideline, I go by what the snake looks like.

(in my opinion, most people feed their ball pythons too much. Mice are fine)

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Haha. Well I do have the quantity at hand. Just unsure if there's an issue with feeding "too many" in one sitting (eg 10 mice each time in the future).

I guess I'll need to find an alternative for the long run

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Ball pythons can be fed MUCH less once they reach their adult weight. Most of my girls are around 2000-3000g each, if I were to feed 10-15% of their body weight each week, that would be 200-300g of food. They'd look like overstuffed sausages if I did that.

You shouldn't ever have to feed ten mice. Four or five maybe, at the most. Adults don't need 10% of their body weight every week. If I ate as much today as I did when I was 18 or 20, I would be the size of a house!

The biggest issue with feeding lots of little bites instead of one big one is just that it's inconvenient. You feed one, wait for it to go down, hand over another, wait for it to go down, hand over another, wait around, hand over another.... It's much quicker to feed one prey and be done.

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

You shouldn't ever have to feed ten mice. Four or five maybe, at the most. Adults don't need 10% of their body weight every week. If I ate as much today as I did when I was 18 or 20, I would be the size of a house!

The biggest issue with feeding lots of little bites instead of one big one is just that it's inconvenient. You feed one, wait for it to go down, hand over another, wait for it to go down, hand over another, wait around, hand over another.... It's much quicker to feed one prey and be done.

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Ahh. So multiple mice doesn't necessarily stress out the bp then? I was wondering if multiple mice might actually cause my girl to expend unnecessary energy by constricting so many rodents.

Also, does that mean that the 10 to 15% guide (wouldn't say it's a rule) only applies to younger, pre adult BPs? If so, how much should you feed an adult, and how frequent? [emoji2]

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Originally Posted by djstarfall

Ahh. So multiple mice doesn't necessarily stress out the bp then? I was wondering if multiple mice might actually cause my girl to expend unnecessary energy by constricting so many rodents.

Also, does that mean that the 10 to 15% guide (wouldn't say it's a rule) only applies to younger, pre adult BPs? If so, how much should you feed an adult, and how frequent? [emoji2]

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Eating does take "energy" or calories just like it takes energy for us to eat and the more you eat the more energy it takes but as long as the intake is greater then the energy spent its fine. Like I said most people feed a small rat a week so the equivalent of that in mice would probably be good. It depends on the snake though. You may have to feed one less or wait longer for another.

Why don't you have access to rats?

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Originally Posted by chrid16371

Eating does take "energy" or calories just like it takes energy for us to eat and the more you eat the more energy it takes but as long as the intake is greater then the energy spent its fine. Like I said most people feed a small rat a week so the equivalent of that in mice would probably be good. It depends on the snake though. You may have to feed one less or wait longer for another.

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Ah okay! Thank you chrid. You're very helpful! [emoji106]

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Originally Posted by stickyalvinroll

Why don't you have access to rats?

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I don't have rats available because it's not on the approved list of animals that can be sold in my country :(

If I really need to, I'll have to bring back some from the neighboring country but that will be a risk

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Originally Posted by djstarfall

I don't have rats available because it's not on the approved list of animals that can be sold in my country :(

If I really need to, I'll have to bring back some from the neighboring country but that will be a risk

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I guess that's a good reason. (Although you might check whether the rules are different for frozen dead ones; if the reason rats are restricted is that they can become a problematic invasive species if they escape, frozen ones don't tend to breed very much. If it's because they can potentially carry diseases that are easily transmissible to local wildlife, dead ones might still be off the menu)

Mice will be fine, and you won't ever have to feed ten of them at a time. You'll have to get a sense for what's appropriate as your snake grows, but if you're being reasonably sensible about it, you probably won't be underfeeding. And if the snake seems hungry all the time or looks skinny or is losing weight, just feed a bit more. If it's getting pudgy, feed a bit less. But anything like that is likely to happen over a pretty long time scale, so plenty of time to adjust feeding as needed. You could also try chicks, quail, gerbils, etc, if they're convenient and available. Anything warm, fuzzy, and about the right size should be fine.

Also, it really doesn't take very much effort for an adult BP to kill a mouse, and it certainly takes less energy to swallow a small prey than a big one. The snake isn't going to work off its entire dinner that way!

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Originally Posted by Coluber42

if the reason rats are restricted is that they can become a problematic invasive species if they escape, frozen ones don't tend to breed very much

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this made me chuckle :rofl: