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?