First feeding

[jeffreybas]

Was suppose to feed my bp tomorrow but since I tend to be an impatient person at times I decided since it had already been three weeks since he ate, They told me it was 2 weeks since he ate at the store and I've had him a week tomorrow, I would see if I could draw him out to eat.

I took a little bedding from the two rats I am keeping and put it right outside his hide. Right away he stuck his head out and started to flicker his tongue. He came out a good ways from his hide and was sniffing around. I took this as a good sign that he was going to eat. So I pulled the rat out of the fridge and put it in some hot water.

After some defrosting I picked the rat up and started to use the blow dryer on its head. My bp had already gone back into his hide and was laying with his head very close to the opening. As soon as I turned the hair dryer on he slowly started to come back out. I inserted the rat down towards him doing the little dead rat dance. It took him less then 10 seconds to snap it up and pull it back towards his body.

Now I tried to get this on video and stupid me had it all set up but one minor little thing. I forgot to hit the record button....LOL

I did get a picture of him though. He has the rat right on top of the head.
Just checked on him and in less then 10 minutes he already has it down.

[jeffreybas]

And now he is looking back outside his hide like he was earlier....Could he still be hungry?

[Skittles1101]

Don't feed him any more than than every 5-7 days. That rat looks to be the right size, so I wouldn't worry. I have one that would probably eat if I tried every day, but doesn't mean I should lol. He begs after he eats, lifts his head just slightly sticking out of his hide saying "more???" lol

Edit: OH and congrats on the first feeding!!!

This is from a while ago, but is this the look he's giving you? lol
"mommy? more food????"

[jeffreybas]

That's exactly what he is doing right now. Every time I pass his tank he kinda looks towards me and flicks his tongue. Funny how they can have that " but I'm still hungry" look to them. He must have been watching my kids

[OtterGoRun]

One of mine is a piggy and always "begs" for food. Too bad, he only gets to eat once a week.

[Jormangandr]

So that's the more food face? I've been seeing a lot of that I always thought it was because he was curious haha

[jeffreybas]

The way mine was acting I am going to say that's the more face.

[ogdentrece]

Mine loves to beg like that, or at least he did a lot at one time, and I always thought I was feeding the right sizes. Sometimes even after feeding a pretty big meal for him (he's pretty small, only 250g), he would keep looking at me. A big meal means abit larger than his widest part and taking quite a while to push it down. Now and then I would give one more, he would take it.

Then I bought a digital kitchen scale. Oh wow have I been underfeeding him! Maybe it's because he looked pretty skinny back then but at 250g I was feeding him no more than 20g! And sometimes the 18g mice and rats have hips quite a bit wider than his body. No wonder he looked so hungry! So now I like to base it on weight rather than size. Of course if a 25-30g looks wayyyy too big for him to swallow I'd just give him 2 smaller ones instead.