scenting rats for mouse eaters

[~Silents~Serpents~]

hi i recently after 8months got my mouse eating spider ball to take a mouse scented rat pup.all i did was put the large rat pup that was alittle bigger than an adult mouse in a small tub with four live female mice that i had breeding at the time and let them all crawl n rub all over the pup for about ten minutes supervised of course.then i opened my spiders tub n dangled the little guy above him and he immediatly struck the rat pup!!and ate it and didnt even try to spit it out or anything!!any bp breeders know how big of deal it is for them to eat rats instead of mice and after 8mnths i finally did the trick.hes only 500gms bcuz of his picky feeding but should skyrocket now.sooooo..now my question lol."does anyone know if anyone has made such a thing as a mouse scented spray?"i mean they have all kinds of sprays to attract other types of animals both carnivors and herbivores so why not mice scent for snakes?lol spray the scent on a rat and bingo a big rat that smells like a mouse!!lol

[frenchy]

I just feed my lemonblasta rat weanling today never tried before and he hesitated for a few but the took it no problem no scent added i didn't know it wa supposed to be hard

[frenchy]

But hey congrats on the switch

[maverickgtr]

Try a 10 year old male that prefers only live white-red-eyed mice that we finally got on f/t rats. I know the feeling.

Congrats!!

[~Silents~Serpents~]

@frenchy-yeah some snakes prefer mice or rats f/t or live some are really picky about swize color ect. the prefered is frozen thawed rats becuse they provied more of a meal n they are dead so there is no risk of harm to the snake and they are the right size u need.

@-maverickgtr-that is one python i would have to sell lol i cant deal with problem feeders unless they are high end morphs

[Alexandra V]

Congrats on getting the switch, it's a great feeling, isn't it?

and as for mouse scented spray... the only thing I can think of is mouse urine lol. I know some people find that works for re-scenting a rat, so maybe someone'll come up with mouse pee cologne for rats?

[rabernet]

Hi! First, a mouse feeder isn't a problem feeder - it IS eating, just not what the keeper may want it to be feeding on. I had no issues raising up my normal girls to breeding size on just mice a few years ago. My entire collection is on rats NOW, but at the time, mice was what was readily available.

Secondly, another way to convert a mouser to rats - get some dirty mouse bedding and place it in the snake's enclosure. Wait for the snake to come out and actively tongue flick and investigate where the mouse is that they smell. Then offer a similarly sized and colored rat - 99% of the time they'll nail the rat.

I offered this tip to someone recently on Facebook that was at their wit's end and they reported back the next day that it worked flawlessly for them.

Giving credit where credit is due - this tip was passed on to me from Kevin McCurley.

[maverickgtr]

He would occasionally miss meals but usually only if the pet store was out of albino mice but we'd get one to try anyway. He'd be just fine so long as the pet store had albino mice which is just about the only kind of mice the pet store we used to go to had anyway unless the supplier was late or something so they had to get them somewhere else. We just made sure he got about three and he was just fine. It's just way cheaper for us to get f/t so we switched him over. Didn't fight too much on us after he got settled from a 1600 mile move. But after a 1600 mile move I'm sure he was just glad not to be in a truck constantly haha He's always been a fatty even when he was on mice and now on the rats he's refused more meals because he wants them less often. As big as he is, he only eats a rat once every 10 days. He'll refuse a meal if we offer sooner than that.

[Luke Martin]

What I've always done that has always worked for me is the "shake n bake" Take some dirty mouse shavings in a tub/bucket/bag and put the rat in. Shake it around for a little bit...and I usually let it sit for a few minutes after shaking it just to get the smell on there. Throw it in the tub and they're usually waiting for it.

[~Silents~Serpents~]

@rabernet-ik mice feeders arnt problem feeders all tgether but even you have to admit rat feeders grow faster and grow bigger.iv had plenty of mouse feeders as pets but breeders i need them to put on weight faster n grow bigger any other time i could care less wat they feed on but that spider was one of my breeder males and was not gaining weight at all on mice.on a side note i hate mice! lol especially breeding them if i didnt keep colubrids i would never deal with them lol so for now my method of choice is a mix kinda of wat u guys have said-i still have a small 1.4colony of mice n just keep them to stock up on pinks for baby colubrids.anyways i just take a large rat pup n toss it in there with them(supervised as usuall)n leave im in there while i feed everybody else and then just toss him in with "THORN"(my spider) and he doesnt hesitate just strikes as soon as he sees it.while im on that iv begun to notce that his once almost non existent wobble is getting worse with age.it was just when he was roaming his tub he would do back bends/flips lol n was quite funny to watch but in the last month or so he has begun to head shake not badly like some just a slight twitch only when going to strike.you have to be looking for it to notice it but is getting alittle more noticable lately.anybody notice the wobble getting worse with age?