Today was a kind of interesting day for Jake. He got his third rat in his lifetime. He usually gets 2 Adult Mice a week, but every once in a while, mice aren't available, and being that I would like to switch to small rats eventually with my entire collection, I have been spuradically giving him weanling rats, or very very small rats. Looking at my feeding record, the last small rat he had was 70g, and he was a little over 250g at the time. That was almost two months ago. Now he's a beefy 420g, and he took a 72g small rat like a champ.

I tried something new with the feeding too. Usually, I just take all his cage furniture out, and drop the mouse in the side of the cage he's not on. He's a very... umm.... opportunistic feeder. Always has a good feeding response, has never turned down a meal, but he usually sits and waits for the little bugger to come by his nose, and then he strikes. This time was totally different. I got home from the pet store with the rat in the cardboard pet carrier, and set it on top of the cage as I had some other stuff to put away from the store. When I got back to the cage (about 5 mins), Jake had come out of his hide, and was actively searching, knowing there was food on top of his cage making noise, and obviously giving off a scent as well. I just left all the furniture in his cage, and dropped the rat in. He actually actively pursued the rat, and nabbed it within about 30 seconds of putting it in. The coil was something I've never seen him do before either. He usually just wraps the mice with the front 1/4 of his body. This time, when he struck, he utilized his ENTIRE length to coil around the rat.

I guess I'm just lucky to have an awesome feeder that will take either mice or rats, and switch back and forth whenever the supplies are available.

Can't wait to get my rack in, and get the girls shipped soon so I can see if they "measure up" to his feeding response. (I'm sure they will since all of the other people on here that have gotten snakes from Adam say they all feed great)