Rats Vs. Mice Question and Testimonial

Hi Everyone! This post is collaboration between my roommate (PigsNPythons) and myself (as she is much better with record keeping than I am.)

My roommate and I have had our collection of ball pythons for some time now. We have been around the forums for about six months now, and time and again I have seen experienced keepers testify that there is no nutritional difference between feeding rats or mice.

First, allow me to explain our situation. My roommate (PigsNPythons) and I are college students. We share an off campus apartment with another roommate. I have three ball pythons and she has seven. The most recent addition to our collection happened nearly four months ago. Here is my dilemma. Early on, since I knew that I had a smaller number to feed, and because I don't really enjoy feeding live, I switched all three of my babies over to frozen thawed. The store in our area that supplies feeders only carries frozen mice however. My roommate continued to feed live.

Our snakes are kept in different racks, but these racks are right next to each other and kept at the EXACT same temperatures. They are all handled at roughly the same intervals. In fact, the only differences in their routines is that fact that mine were feeding on one frozen thawed adult mouse every five days while hers were feeding on one rat pup every five days. The rat pups we were feeding were approximately the same size as the frozen adult mice. Every week before feeding, all of our snakes are weighed on a gram scale.

About mid December, we noticed a rather alarming trend. My snakes, the ones feeding on mice, were growing DRASTICALLY slower than those of my roommate, the rat feeders. Here for you are some of the numbers. All of the snakes listed below are 07 babies, and most were of comparable size when this anecdotal study began. They have all been tested and are parasite free (my first worry when mine were growing slower) Listed below are the names of some of the snakes, followed by their weight gain from October 26 to November 29 (Approximately one month), followed by their weights now.

My Snakes:
Pumpkin (07 CH Normal)- 42 Grams gained in time frame, Now 258 Grams
Pastel Boy (07 Pastel Male)- 48 Grams gained, Now 241 Grams
Apple (07 Cinnamon Pastel Female)- 37 Grams gained, Now 311 Grams

PigsNPythons Snakes:
Pecan (07 CH Normal)- 79 Grams gained, Now 313 grams
Lemon (07 Pastel Female)- 78 Grams gained, Now 311 grams
Bowtie (07 Het Albino male)- 115 Grams gained, Now 398 grams
Sweet Potato (07 Het Albino Female)- 104 Grams gained, Now 463
Spaghetti (07 Spider Male)- 101 Grams gained, Now 369

Having seen these numbers, I recently switched to live rats to see if mine would grow faster. This switch happened only after I returned form Christmas break so it has only been two weeks, but the numbers are already showing a remarkable change. You will notice that my Cinnamon Girl is actually now as large as my roommates smallest girls. This is a new development as, in the past two weeks (since I switched to rat pups) she has gained 40 grams. This is AFTER a poop only two days ago and before he meal today. Pastel boy has gained 41 grams in the past two weeks, and Pumpkin has gained 40 grams. Both of them pooed this week as well. This means that in the past two weeks, since switching to rats, mine have gained as much weight as they originally gained during the one month time frame listed above.

Given these numbers, and the change in growth rate since I have switched to rats, I can only conclude that somehow the rats are aiding our ball pythons in growing much faster than the mice were. Just some food (hahaha) for thought.

What are everyone's thoughts on this situation?

Either food item provides the nutrients that you snake needs and more - people may argue that this one has more of this or that one has more of that but generally what is required is used and what isn't required is just eliminated in waste. Now the rats do have more fat than the mice - which would account for the weight gain. Think of it like the mousers being on a chicken diet and the ratters being on a pork diet.

What were the gram weights of the mice vs. the rats that were being fed BEFORE they were eaten? Only with that data can a fair comparison be made.

For example ... if snake A gains 100 grams in a month being fed 250 grams of rat in that same month, and snake B gains only 70 grams in a month being fed 140 grams of mouse in that same month, snake B (the mouser) is actually growing more efficiently even though it gained 30 grams less than snake A. Sure snake A grew "faster", but that's because it was offered a larger volume of food. If snake B in the scenario above were offered that same 250 grams of food in mice, it would have gained approximately 125 grams and would have grown "faster" than snake A.

From the data that I've kept over the years, I've found that gram for gram ball pythons grow just as "fast" on mice as they do on rats. BUT, since rats are bigger than mice and you can actually get more "RAT" into a ball python in a single feeding than you typically can with mice they "SEEM" to grow faster on rats.

And if it helps at all ... I feed mostly rats. ;)

-adam

I'll be interested to see what people say. I would say try possibly feeding the same size and type of prey she is feeding, only frozen thawed and see what the difference is. That would determine if the growth rate difference was due to the fact yours are mice and hers are rats, or if it's live vs. frozen thawed.

Thanks for the quick responses everyone! We are both very interested in everyone's opinions.

Tosha_Mc: That is a neat way to think about it. I would think that would be a good way to think about it, except for one thing. Being an animal science major, I have learned in several classes that the younger the animal, the lower the percentage of body fat as a general rule. I don't know how well this 'rule' translates into an animal with such a quick growth pattern as mice. I would say your assessment would be spot on for adult mice/rats in terms of fat content, but I am not sure how that would translate into a younger rat vs a full grown mouse. I would be interested for any thoughts/ numbers on that.

Adam_Wysocki: I agree that the weight of the feeders would indeed be another vital piece of information. Our record keeping was only done for the sake of making sure our snakes were growing though, and so we did not keep track of the exact weight of the feeders. I do know they were approximately the same size, and, given that her snakes grew twice as fast as mine, I know there is no way that the mice were ever half as small as the rat pups, as they would have to be to make mine the more efficient growers. I am very interested that your years of experience have shown you no apparent difference in the two types of feeders. Thanks so much for posting.

Holbeird: Yes, I had wondered about the possibility of it being the difference in frozen thawed vs. live as well. For the sample of data we gave you, mine were on frozen and hers were on live. During December, however, my roommate was feeding frozen thawed rat pups that she ordered off the internet. If you will notice their ending weights, it is still apparent that hers have maintained their stellar growth despite their food being switched to frozen thawed. We did not want to provide the data from December because we both traveled home for Christmas, and some of our snakes went off feed due to the stress of being moved. Also, we have only one gram scale, which went home with roommate, so I have no weights from the last three weeks in December.

We really appreciate the quick responses that we got on this post. As we noticed the differences, I became more and more interested in examining the data and trying to understand what was going on here.

Adam, I completely agree that to make this "study" more accurate we would need the weights of the feeders. During the time frame that we provided data for, we clearly were not anticipating needing the weights of our feeders. However, I know that they were always very close in size, and that even if there was a difference, it wouldn't be enough to account for the fact that my snakes grew nearly twice as much as PythonChics.

Holbeird, that is an interesting point! During the month of December, I switched my snakes to f/t rats. Here is the data for dec 5 through jan 5 (all meals fed frozen). I will include the number of times the snake ate during this time frame because some of my snakes went off of fed (probably because I moved them home over Christmas break).
Lemon - 83 grams gained 6 meals (f/t)
Bowtie-63 grams gained 4 meals(f/t)
Sweet Potato-80 grams gained 5 meals(f/t)
Spaghetti-82 grams gained 6 meals(f/t)

For the data posted in PythonChics post, every snake ate 7 meals for the grams gained over the oct to nov month.
Therefore,
Lemon-13.8 grams per f/t meal; 11.1 grams per live meal
Bowtie-15.7 grams per f/t meal; 16.4 grams per live meal
Sweet Potato-16 grams per f/t meal; 14.8 grams per live meal
Spaghetti-13.6 grams per f/t meal; 14.4 grams per live meal

And I do not have the weights of the feeders, I can only say that they were very close in size.
Thanks again for the responses.

Yes younger animals usualy have less body fat than adults of the same species. However if the rat pup is the same size as the mouse than the rat will almost always have more fat. So I agree with the theory that the difference in growth rate is do to the higher fat content in the rats. An easy way to see this is to disect one of each (feeder rat, and mouse) and see how much fat each has stored.

I researched the different nutrients each caries and they are a little bit different but not much. Ratio wise theyre basically the same. I mainly feed rat pups about the same size as mice since the pups wont bite back. Ive had both my balls bite the wrong end of a mouse and get bit back. Seeing as balls are from africa, ASF rats are probably the healthiest for them but there is no evidence to prove this. Whatever your ball feels like eating whether it be rats/mice/ASF rats it should be be fine health wise.

Im going to bring this article up for everyone to look at.

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

Shows alot of information on different prey items.

Cool article.:gj:

I think you guys noticed something neat, but I have to whole heartedly agree with Adam. Your getting more food into the snake from one feeding, use less energy to constrict and swallow then a few mice etc. I think it's more efficient to feed one rat instead of a few mice. I have no problem with mice, just whatever works for the snake. (not even sure the multiple mice is using any more calories, but you do get more bang for your buck w/ one rat.)

Now I would also like to add something, these snakes very well could have gone through their respective growth spurts, just not at the exact same time. Young snakes grow a lot, and I'm sure you know that. I sometimes open my young ones tub and am amazed at how much they've grown. (I deal mainly with the rats, so may not see them every single week ;))

Different snakes, different metabolisms, different growth rates. I think you have something to think about, but there are just too many variables to peg it all to just food item. Look at Jasball's 07 female's breeding, how many snakes can do that? How many grow like a ****ens and slow down to a crawl?

Genetics, husbandry, food items, stress/enviromental cues, they all have a hand in how a snake grows, so it's hard to say that feeding rats is better than mice pertaining to growth rate, or vice versa.

I don't want to rain on your parade so much, I just think the evidence leaves much to be desired and is very inconclusive. But congratulations on the post, it is something to ponder. :gj:

Nice posts, guys. Keep up the research.

Fat content higher in rat pups (age and species)?
Live more nutritious? I know I would prefer a fresh steak to a frozen one!

Control your variables (F/T vs. live and weights of prey) and do it again. I can't wait to see your results.

Yeah keep it up. It will make feeding time more interesting. But I agree control your variables and give us the results. I am sure lots of people here would like to see them.:gj:

I think everyone misunderstood just a little. I didn't mean to present this as a scientific study or hard evidence to the fact that rats are better than mice for feeding ball pythons or any other snake. I just thought it was very interesting that my balls were growing at approximately the same rate, and that that rate was much slower than that of my roommates' who were also growing at about the same rate as each other, but much faster than mine. I know this is no guarantee of genetics or anything, but the two CH girls were purchased from the same breeder at the same time and were approximately the same size at the beginning. Initially pumpkin (my CH girl) grew much faster. This was during the time period when we first got them and they were our only balls and they were both feeding on mice. Once my roomie switched to rats, however, Pecan quickly surpassed pumpkin in both growth rate and weight. This was the same case with my pastel male and her pastel female. They were both purchased from the same breeder at the same time. She started out much slower, but quickly caught up once she had a few weeks on rat pups. I know snakes can grow at different rates from one another, but I find it strange that ALL of her snakes would have hit their growth spurts while NONE of mine have. Being that there are so many experienced keepers on this board, I was only looking for some opinions on why this might be, and trying to present the facts as they happened/ as we recorded them. It will be interesting though. If I ever get to the point where I am breeding a few clutches a year, I might try randomly assigning them to groups and feeding them different things once they get established. That will be a long time from now though. For the moment I will be keeping mine on rat pups, just to see if they continue to grow at an accelerated rate. Thanks for the posts everyone, you have all pointed out some factors we hadn't thought about!

I have a little tweak to your test that you could try... Since we tend to think that rats are "more nutritional" for snakes than mice you should be able to feed a smaller rat than mouse and still get the same results... Like adam said youd need a scale to weigh out the rats but feed more mice and less rat and see what happens... If rats are more nutritional you should be able to feed less and get more... I dont think it makes a difference, mice or rats as long as your snakes eating something.

Ever think what all of that high fat content is doing to their heart and other organs? I'll stick with sirloin(mice) versus brisket(rats).

This girl look like she's suffering any? When I rescued her she was 780g at around 3 years old. 1 mouse a month.. After I got her in May 06, she gained over 1500g between then and December 06 on just 3 and sometimes 4 mice a week. That's not on retired breeder mice either.. just normal sized, healthy adult mice. She's now over 2200g and doesn't have much fat on her at all.

http://i167.photobucket.com/albums/u...PICT0045-2.jpg

Like Emily said, we didn't mean for our post to be taken as hard scientific fact. We just thought that it might bring up some interesting discussion, which it mostly has done. To you mouse-feeders, there really is no need to get defensive. I mean its not like we posted a thread titled "Mice Will Make Your Snakes Shrink! Don't Feed Them!" :rolleye2: We just related our experience with feeding mice vs. rats. Thanks again for all of the replies and discussion!

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Originally Posted by PigsnPythons

Like Emily said, we didn't mean for our post to be taken as hard scientific fact. We just thought that it might bring up some interesting discussion, which it mostly has done. To you mouse-feeders, there really is no need to get defensive. I mean its not like we posted a thread titled "Mice Will Make Your Snakes Shrink! Don't Feed Them!" :rolleye2: We just related our experience with feeding mice vs. rats. Thanks again for all of the replies and discussion!

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by PythonChick

but I find it strange that ALL of her snakes would have hit their growth spurts while NONE of mine have. Being that there are so many experienced keepers on this board, I was only looking for some opinions on why this might be, and trying to present the facts as they happened/ as we recorded them.

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Well, if you didn't mean to make it sound like fact, you sure are arguing it that way. Can't expect the mousers here to not have some sort of rebuttal. I agree it was a neat trend, but as many have said, including me, the small bit of evidence is VERY unreliable, esp when there are so many people out there like Becky that feed primarily mice with some fat butt snakes. ;)

I think in this case the amount of food was more to blame as the cause than anything else, but I wasn't there so I can't be for sure.

If you do someday breed some animals and can control all of your settings, I think this would be an excellent experiment. Just don't expect anyone to put much credence into it now. :)

I look forward to seeing what you come up with.