Quote Originally Posted by Egapal View Post
I have to disagree with people. I breed gerbils as feeders and I would say the average litter is more like 5 to 8. I currently have a female that has given me one litter of 8 and one litter of 11 (her current litter, all doing well so far). But lets go ahead and assume an average litter of 4. I feed my BP once a week. So average litter of 4, 4 weeks in a month, sounds perfect to me. That being said you do have to raise your gerbils up a bit more than you would a rat. I have also fed live and never had a bite. I think that gerbils get a bit of a bad reputation in that department. Like any rodent they do not want to be eaten. Whether or not your snake gets bitten has a lot more to do with knowing your snake and your feeders and being attentive and of course luck than it does with your choice of feeder species, in my humble opinion.
you're lucky then. mine have been terribly slow reproducers and the biggest litter iv had was 5, they do from what i can tell smell less though, and they drink/eat less which is good, but when you have 50 something snakes they arent really an option. who knows, maybe i just suck with gerbils and do awesome with rats lol