When to offer multiple prey items?

Daisy has been happily munching on adult mice since we got her three months ago. She eats very consistently but lately, it just doesn't seem as if it is enough. She weighs about 255g and is about 22" long.
The mice are smaller then her girth. When is it the right time to offer multiple adult mice?

TIA
Tony

i would try to find bigger mice!


if you can find them for the same price, that would be cheaper than buying 2,3 small ones.

or buy a bunch and feed them up for a week or so.



vaughn

I've been trying to switch Auryn (he's about 425g) over to rat pups, but he wasn't having it after many weeks of trying. I broke down last night and went to the only pet store option for F/T adult mice around. Their "adult" mice at PetCo--in the frozen bags--are the size of the little mice Auryn was eating when I first saw him--nowhere NEAR the size of an adult mouse.

If you're getting your F/T mice from Petco or some other place, I'd try getting them from an online source or a small mom-and-pop store source. They'll know what an adult mouse looks like, and it'll be a bigger meal for you boy :) That being said, two of those tiny PetCo frozen mice got fed to Auryn one after the other last night. I waited until he had swallowed the first one and flicked his tongue a few times before offering the second one.

Hope this helps?

Tony, if you are feeding live I'd definitely suggest you do as Vaughn said. Feeder mice coming out of big, often overcrowded feeder bins are often undersized or sold as "adults" when they are really just barely weaned. It's in your snake's best interest to be offered a well fed, well hydrated prey animal so I always think it's best to bring home the live feeders, and do as Vaughn said, feed them up well for a few days to a week, provide lots of water and then you have a decent feeder mouse. :)

I've been feeding Lilly two mice a week, b/c the only place you can get mice or rats here is petco, and for rats, all they have is fully grown medium and large rats. =/ She won't eat f/t and other wise I would have to go to the next decent sized town...at least an hour away. It's not really possible to keep the mice that long to fatten them up, but it doesn't actually hurt to feed two mice a feeding does it? I know it's not ideal, but it's not harmful, right?

Oh heck no Shannon, not at all. We have a few multiple mouse eaters in our collection. Just remember to let your snake take the first mouse fully past the more slender neck area and get herself set back up for the next strike. Make sure both live prey are put into her enclosure well away from her so she can properly and safely hunt them. Some weeks she may take one after the other, some weeks she may just want to the one so it's best if you do feed multiples that you have some sort of rodent safe housing available in case you do need to hold one over until the next week's feeding (as well as food and a water bottle of course).

That's what I thought. I have been feeding multiple for a few weeks now, and she does just fine, just thought I would see what someone else said about it. ^_^

I just made the switch to multiples because my BP is still to small for rats and I was having trouble getting the jumbo mice my ball craved so badly :D

He prolly could have choked down a small rat but I was too scared to do it. So, instead of a jumbo adult I substituted two small adults. It went really well. Because they were small, each one was much easier to consume. I think he was trying to impress me because he was using only his "neck" to constrict. :) And, after the second one, he still ended up with the nice fat tummy he got from the large mice. :sunny: The only scary part is I think he enjoyed it a bit too much..... :O

I may feed multiple prey items if i'm trying to switch a BP from mice or from rats to f/t rats. I just offer the p/k or f/t item as it's swallowing the mouse. They get the head of the rat with the butt of the mouse and just swallow it naturally. That way they aren't spending all that energy killing another item, but they get the better, nutritious rat!

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Originally Posted by Mezclado_Reps

That way they aren't spending all that energy killing another item, but they get the better, nutritious rat!

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Rats aren't necessarily "better" than mice. There are no studies on the nutritional "requirements" of ball pythons, so no one can definitively say that rats are better than mice for ball pythons.

Yes, you may have to feed multiple mice if you have a mouser, but in my experience, my mousers have the same growth rate as my ratters.

This girl is 1500 grams and only gets two mice a week.

http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e9...andoraJan5.jpg

Joanna has a large female that only eats mice as well and the snake would probably insist that mice are "better" than rats to her!

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Originally Posted by rabernet

Joanna has a large female that only eats mice as well and the snake would probably insist that mice are "better" than rats to her!

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LOL yep you go ahead and tell Dori that rats are better! She's an 05 and at 1,152 grams is quite a nice sized female (might even be a bit heavier, I couldn't get her to let me stuff that last bit in the scale bowl). She's a mouser and does take multiples per week while steadfastly refusing to have anything to do with rats. Can't argue with these sorts of results though....:)

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ghedJune07.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ramsJune07.jpg

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Originally Posted by frankykeno

LOL yep you go ahead and tell Dori that rats are better! She's an 05 and at 1,152 grams is quite a nice sized female (might even be a bit heavier, I couldn't get her to let me stuff that last bit in the scale bowl). She's a mouser and does take multiples per week while steadfastly refusing to have anything to do with rats. Can't argue with these sorts of results though....:)

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ghedJune07.jpg

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e2...ramsJune07.jpg

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Agreed!! My Ball I thought switched over to rats after he very willingly took his first rat! After that he is afraid of them and will definatley only take mice....he currently gets about 2-3 hoppers a week.

I've tried everything...sent him memos..begged him.....showed him bar graphs....sent him messages.....said Look buddy mice aren't all they are talked up to be...he isn't having it.

So mice it is.


Mike

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Originally Posted by 8b8ll

I've tried everything...sent him memos..begged him.....showed him bar graphs....sent him messages.....said Look buddy mice aren't all they are talked up to be...he isn't having it.

So mice it is.


Mike

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LOL that's too funny Mike! Personally as long as they are aggressive eaters, and taking an appropriate volume of prey per week plus the prey itself is top quality...well then mice or rats isn't a big issue. I'm only trying to switch a few of my mousers to rats purely because I breed rats so I'd prefer they take prey I personally raised but some of them still prefer those store bought mice.

So is there a size (girth/weight) threshold? When do I know to add a second mouse to the menu?

When the first prey item doesn't make a "noticeable" lump then I would say you could offer another prey item of equal or lesser size.


Mike

Yea, there is a definate point where they just don't look very satisfied by a meal. A good meal puts my snake right to bed and he usually stays there the whole next day. When its not enough he stays active after the meal like he's trying to say "that was a nice appetizer, when's the entree getting here?"

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Originally Posted by 8b8ll

When the first prey item doesn't make a "noticeable" lump then I would say you could offer another prey item of equal or lesser size.


Mike

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I don't feed for noticeable lumps. The girl I posted gets 2 adult mice a week, no visible lumps from that. She sometimes gets 3 mice, but I feed for consistent weekly feeding (ie, smaller meals).

I am trying to convert her to rats, for the same reason as Joanna - I breed rats, not mice and it would be more convenient for me as a keeper. She ate a rat for me last week, and refused a rat this week (but was not offered mice instead - I'm going to let her appetite build more).

Bottom line - feed what works best for you as a keeper and what your snake will eat consistently. If this girl refuses to convert to rats after my best efforts, then so be it, mice she'll have.

None of our snakes show much of a "visible lump" either, maybe on some of them a bit of a thickening but nothing that could be remotely called a "lump".

Oi my boy wont eat anythin but mice right now

im thinkin this weeek buyin 2 an see what he does

Thanks guys, but keeping mice around is a no-go.