Is your BP a mouser?

Hey all!

Quick question - how many of you feed mice to your BPs, and as adult snakes, about how many do they get and how frequently?

I have a baby girl right now who I am just beginning to transition to f/t (second snake I've done this with) and she's absolutely refused every rat I've offered her whether p/k or f/t but tonight, after a good long while of refusing, she finally struck and ate a mouse pinky. DEFINITELY too small of a meal for her, but it's a start, and I plan to offer her another in a day or so if she'll have it.

The primary reason I'm making this thread is because I know there's been some heated debate out there in regards to whether rats are more nutritious than mice and I think the conclusion that I've seen is that rats are the better choice - but if you've never managed to switch a BP over to rats, is your snake still doing relatively well on mice? How many do they eat?

I am obviously going to continue to try to switch her to rats as best I can, but you can never be too prepared for other eventualities, right?

Thanks in advance!

I don't have mousers anymore, but my first BP was difficult to get on both f/t or rats. Not sure how you're planning on doing it, but I found that it was easier getting him from live mice to f/t mice first. And once he's more consistently taking icky thawed mice, replace them with a thickly mouse-scented similar sized rat, so usually small weaned. Just an off tip!

About the mouse vs. rat thing, the biggest difference is really just feeding one filling meal is much easier and cheaper on you, than multiple mice. The nutritional difference between, say an adult mouse vs. similar sized weaned rat, is so minimal that imo it's a non-issue and the discussion has been really overblown.

Karma had been eating f/t rats for 7 months with me and then all of a sudden started refusing and this went on for a month. I have her on live mice now, haven't had a refusal. This doesn't hurt me in terms of how much the food costs because my local pet store sells live and f/t mice and rats, and live and f/t are the same prices. Now, both of my snakes are on live mice.

If you have no problem feeding her mice, I would keep her on them. I've heard that neither is more nutritious than the other.

The only time I try a mouse anymore is when my guy refuses after about a month with no weight loss. He generally does this in the winter, I'm pretty sure he thinks he's about to be bred. But I continue to give him the option every week until he eats, although now that I think on it he hasn't refused this year yet.

I don't always have rats available and my collection is too small to start my own feed colony. Mice are more readily available. However, I am currently searching for quality frozen feed. I don't forsee a problem switching my bp because he's become quite the lil garbage truck and seems to eat anything. He has the funniest feeding response. Been trying to get a video but its a bit hard to hold camera and tongs....lol

My male (despite my best efforts and continued efforts) has been a mouser since I got him two years ago. It's more expensive since he eats five mice at a time but he's proven to me that he'd rather starve than eat a rat of any size. Sigh.

I have four boys 2 to 3 years in age roughly, weighing from around 1150 grams to 1400 grams. Taking about 4 to 6 jumbo mice a piece per month (and still putting on weight). if your want I can post exact ages and weights. I feel they're doing fine. I had a few boas in the past, that I switched no problems. But cost wise through any of the big rodent places I'd only be saving a couple bucks a month switching. Even though I'm not really against eventually switching, I've even been considering it. But so far, it's working out great for my situation.

I've had ball pythons that took both mice and rats, a few that refused mice and a few that refused rats. As far as I could tell, all three groups did equally well. All of them took gerbils, though.

As for the mouse vs. rat nutrition thing, I'm with redsheperd.

When I bought 2 Adult Coastals and a Juvie Jungle Carpet I was told that they were mousers. I switched them to rats immediately. Mainly for cost reasons. Now it would be like trying to feed a NFL Linebacker a meal with only Totino's Pizza Rolls! :D

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Lizzy, Coastal Carpet

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Mine is big enough to handle a small rat, but she doesn't want it... Fortunately not unreasonable to give her a large mouse... Yet...

I only have one that I'm feeding on f/t mice only because I don't have any rats small enough for her.
I'm gonna be ordering a shipment of frozen food after the new year

I have a picky eater... he will only eat live rats. Literally snubs his snoot at anything else.


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My male absolutely hates rats. If he takes a mouse scented with rat, he won't eat again for a couple weeks. But he's about 850g, a year and a half old, and eats one jumbo mouse averaging 40g a week. He used to be a disposal when younger but now only eats one mouse at a time. When he eats he gains wait, slow but steady. He just got off a 2 month fast and went down to about 820g and stabilized there for a month or so.

Kyle


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My pastel was a serious mouser. One way heck maybe the only way to get them to switch is to offer f/t rats until they eventually take. It sucks and i hated doing that to her but in the end it was for the better.

^^^ This ... I hated doing it , but I have switched all my to frozen thawed rats. Remember the switch stresses you out 100 times worse than them lol. Battle of the will power haha who can hold out longer. Don't offer her anything for 2 weeks see if that changes her mind. If not ... well they always said patience is bliss right lol ? Good luck it's a pain , but soooo worth it.

I had a mouser. Ugh. Never again. I have no clue how her previous owner got her up to 2000g.

She wouldn't take frozen thawed and it took forever to feed her enough mice for a single meal. Picky eater that took a lot of enticing.

I switched her to african soft furs. She pounded the first one and has never taken more than 30 seconds to go after another.

I've even leven able to get her to take rats if they're scented with soft fur bedding.

I have 1 guy on mice right now due to his size. I can't wait till he is big enough for rats.

As far as rats go, are ASF and regular rats the same as far as the snake is concerned? Is there a difference between them like there is between a rat and a mouse? Can/Do they go into ASF mode and only want them?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cletus

As far as rats go, are ASF and regular rats the same as far as the snake is concerned? Is there a difference between them like there is between a rat and a mouse? Can/Do they go into ASF mode and only want them?

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Yeah the snakes definitely know the difference. And they can ger stuck on them just the same as they can get stuck on any prey item.

However, if I have to have a snake stuck on something, I'd rather it be ASFs. 1 ASF is equal to 2-3 mice size wise. That alone is enough to make it worth it to me. I don't wanna sit there and feed multiple prey items. And I've actually found sources of ASFs cheaper than mice and Norwegians in my area.

Plus I figure since that's what they evolved to eat they're probably going to do well on them.

That said mine switch back and forth easily between rats and ASFs depending on what I have available.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by voodoolamb

Yeah the snakes definitely know the difference. And they can ger stuck on them just the same as they can get stuck on any prey item.

However, if I have to have a snake stuck on something, I'd rather it be ASFs. 1 ASF is equal to 2-3 mice size wise. That alone is enough to make it worth it to me. I don't wanna sit there and feed multiple prey items. And I've actually found sources of ASFs cheaper than mice and Norwegians in my area.

Plus I figure since that's what they evolved to eat they're probably going to do well on them.

That said mine switch back and forth easily between rats and ASFs depending on what I have available.

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Sweet. Thanks for the info!!!

I breed ASFs and mice and rats, the ASFs produce SLOW!!! I actually accidently fed off all my males, luckily I had a female that had babies and at least one is a male, so I'm waiting for him to grow up to breed back. But the babies grow painfully slow, and they have a problem raising up their babies, seems like a lot of the babies end up dying. My rats and mice produce 10 times faster than the ASF. I almost got rid of them but since they are very difficult to come by I decided to keep one tub of ASF in my rack just to keep them around.

It seems to me that the size of the prey item is more important than what type of rodent it actually is. Usually I switch back and forth between mice, ASF, and rats. Most times when a snake doesn't eat it's because I offered something too big, I think that's why a lot of snakes like the mice, they are a good size for just about any ball python, big or small. This week I was having a problem with my rodents stinking up the basement and I realized it's because I have too many male mice in the tubs, so I fed off a bunch of males tonight (my smell almost totally went away!).

Even if I give an adult snake a mouse he only gets one. I feed twice a week, sometimes they get an adult mouse, sometimes a small / medium / large rat, and sometimes an ASF of various size depending on which tubs are full of rodents that week. I have 20 rodent tubs and 20 snakes and it works out just perfect. If I have too many rodents I double up or triple up, especially the mice or small rats. I do have snakes that randomly won't eat for a couple weeks, but I still offer whatever is available twice a week, not really concerned if they don't eat unless they start looking really skinny.

I feed only fresh killed rodents, the only live ones I'll feed are the newborn hairless pinky mice to my AZ MT King snakes. That's actually the only reason I keep the mice around, the newborn baby rats are too big for my King snakes LOL.