Quote Originally Posted by JAMills View Post
I would be interested in what percentage water weight feeder rodents are.

Water is not being converted into body mass, though it would contribute to weight until expelled or evaporated (Do Snakes sweat?)

I don't know what the percentage is for rodents but they say a human is 60% - 75% water by weight depending on the individual (percentage decreases with age and physical factors)

So let's just say 60% water weight for the rodent as an EXAMPLE

A 100g rodent would then actually on be 40g weight not water
Then you would have to figure how much of that 40g is passed as waste,
how much is converted to energy and burned, and how much is converted to body mass (Tissue, bone, fat, ect.)

So 10% is probably a pretty good estimate without actually doing the science


I would be interested in seeing a scientific break down of that supported with good documentation
Too much work for me...I think I will just enjoy my snakes
not to be picky, but much of a snake's body mass is water as well, so a significant amount of their mass increase would come from the water they take in. I hadn't really thought about that much, but it's interesting.

Lots of biology texts quote the 10% thing, but it's very generalized.