How old does a rat baby have to be in order to be ~ size to a normal feeder mouse

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

Just curious, Snakey is eating normal sized pet store mice right now, but I was trying to figure out how long that babies would have to be to make ~ size

[reptile-girl]

nevermind

[gmmuscle91]

Im not tottaly sure but probably just under 2 weeks. about rat pups.

[frankykeno]

We consider our rats to be pups when they are about 14 days old. They are fully furred and they begin to open their eyes about then.

Just took these out of my tubs....the dark larger one is a 15 day old rat pup, the smaller one is an 8 day old pinkie almost fuzzy rat (we usually call them fuzzies by day 9)


~~Jo~~

[SnakeySnakeSnake]

So for feeding Snakey if he normally eats a mouse sized meal, and could maybe take a slightly larger one without being "lumped", would it make sense to feed him two pinkies (newborn), and then 2 1 week old, and then drop it down to 1 2 week old, 1 3 week old, etc? Im trying to figure out how to space out the litter without over/under feeding him, or giving him too big of a meal to handle (Im guessing he could handle up to a 3 week? but I have no clue the realistic sizes.

[frankykeno]

Well if you figure a pink is about half to a third the size of a fuzzy (depending on days old) and a fuzzy is about the same relative to a pup and a rat pup about equals a young adult mouse (not some super big old breeder mouse mind you)....then if your snake can take an adult mouse you can offer it your rat young of whatever size and just do multiples till your litter catches up to your snake.

For instance Malachi our 8 month old bp can take 2 pups every Thursday (about 13-15 day old pups...not pups that are almost weanlings at 23-24 days old). If I don't have pups of that exact size he will happily take 3 fuzzies that week. He doesn't seem to care at all for pinks anymore but I always have either pups or fuzzies so no problem there. Nothing we own eats pinkie rats actually LOL (hmmm I need more snakes! )

Basically this is the info I keep handy (gleemed from various commerical rat breeders sites and our own litters so far) as a guideline:

Rat Sizes by Age:

1 to 8 days Pinkie - no coat development, eyes shut, 1.5 - 2", 3 - 8 grams
9 to 13 days Fuzzie - peach fuzz, eyes shut, 2 - 2.5", 9 - 19 grams
14 - 23 days Pups - hair growth, eyes start opening, leaving the nest, trying food and water, still nursing a lot, 2.5 - 3.5", 20-29 grams
23-28 days Weanling - coats fully in, eyes open, eating, drinking on their own, fully ready to be weaned, mother rat is usally trying to stay away from them by this time as they will still try to nurse but don't need to any longer, 3.5 - 4.5", 30 - 44 grams
29+ days Feeder - seperate by sex before 35 days old (5 weeks of age), so they do not begin to reproduce in the feeder tubs


Hope this made any sense at all LOL.


~~Jo~~