At what age.....

[casicassie]

Hello everyone!
Last week my beautiful mouse Gabby had 8 pinkys! Now they are one week old and are starting to get fur..is it okay to feed them to my ball python at this age or should I wait?

[Beardedragon]

What are you waiting for? You can feed any age mouse to a ball python as long as it is the correct size for the ball python.

[Argentra]

Well, technically you shouldn't be feeding pinkies or fuzzies to any BP, since hatchlings can and should eat hopper mice.

Fuzzies still have their eyes closed but have fur, while hoppers have eyes open but are still nursing from time to time.

The best way to determine what size prey your snake should get is to feed them a mouse that is the same diameter as the widest part of the snake.

[MDB]

Depending on the size and weight of my snake I feed time and a half its diameter

[casicassie]

Thank you Argentra...I remembered reading that somewhere also. So I should at least wait until they open their eyes??

[MDB]

correct me if Im wrong but at 19 days you wean them from their mother, and at that age they are about half the size of an adult mouse. So I would say wait another 5-6 days.

[Argentra]

Yep. I usually go by activity levels with mine, since it's really hard to keep track of when each litter was born around here. Once their eyes are open and they are bouncing around, they are large enough to be fed to a young BP. When they are seen drinking from the water bottle and nibbling the food, they are weaned and considered "small" adults - the next size step up. After that, it's best to compare their size to the diameter of your snake.