Mice Hopper vs Rat Fuzzies?

[Stephanie01]

This is good info! I wondered why my Pastel was such a pig last night. She packed back a pinky and a hopper. Only home for one day and ate like a superstar! I'm impressed. I will definitely move her up to adult mice though for next feeding.

[nimblykimbly]

Just my humble opinion - I would think it would make the best sense to switch to rat fuzzies if they will take them, since eventually they will be better off on rats as they grow too large for mice... might as well switch them all earlier and not have to worry about switching later, when they might be more stuck in their ways... I've read some people's concerns that their snake wouldn't take a rat and instead would down several mice in a feeding. Personally, I'd like to avoid that if I possibly could!

[nimblykimbly]

This is good info! I wondered why my Pastel was such a pig last night. She packed back a pinky and a hopper. Only home for one day and ate like a superstar! I'm impressed. I will definitely move her up to adult mice though for next feeding.

My pastel will inhale anything I put in there for her too! And right after we got her, also! No necessary transition for her! She is the best eater I have ever seen!

[bpdesign]

I used both for a long period of time but I am currently changing my snakes slowly over to mice completely. The reason being, I breed my rodents and the mice as more convenient. The mice take up less room, can handle more babies, and I don't have to euthanize retired breeders and find someone to take them like with the rats. With a mouse colony, I can use all sizes (except pinkies) for my snakes.

[BulkMice]

they are real close gram per gram, and in most cases the mouse per gram is gonna cost quite a bit less.

[Expensive hobby]

I may have weird logic on this, but I breed rats, and currently have like 7-8 litters born in the last 2 weeks, so I have a lot of sizes available, but I still buy adult mice for my smaller snakes. Why? Because buying 14 adult mice costs me like $10, whereas a medium rat would cost around $4-6 each. So ya I could feed off what I have every week, but then I don't have any grow outs in the larger size ranges. So I spend $10 a week to save $28-$42 a week.

Makes sense to me lol


I like my Dubstep to go Wop Wop Wop Wop

[bcr229]

I used both for a long period of time but I am currently changing my snakes slowly over to mice completely. The reason being, I breed my rodents and the mice as more convenient. The mice take up less room, can handle more babies, and I don't have to euthanize retired breeders and find someone to take them like with the rats. With a mouse colony, I can use all sizes (except pinkies) for my snakes.

You may want to re-think that. If you ever have to re-home your snakes, a lot of people don't want ball pythons that only eat mice, as feeding several mice per week gets a lot more expensive than feeding one small rat per week.

[patientz3ro]

I can't speak for all BP's, but I recently switched from mice to rats, despite the fact that Ajja has been a total mouser all her life. Prior to making the switch, she would display very distinct behaviors when she was ready to eat. She typically starts poking around the corners of her cage and trying to stick her nose between the back wall and screen top. Almost like clockwork, every 8 days or so. She also gets a LOT more active during the day and comes to investigate every time the doors are opened. When I start seeing that, I feed her. When she's been fed, she goes into the warm hide and "turkey naps" for 3 or 4 days. After a few days, she's back to her normal cruising patterns at night, and lounging during the day.

A few weeks ago, she started "hunting," I dropped 6 large mice in for her. She ate the two largest and ignored the other four. The next feeding was another 6 of about the same size. She ignored every one. After leaving the mice over night, I saw that she was still hunting, even with,the mice in the tank. On a hunch, I picked up a medium rat that afternoon. She immediately started trying to eat it. Afterward, back to sleep for 4 days. The only explanation I have is that the largest mice I had were still too small for her to consider prey.

Just to stir the pot, I'd like to point out that the rat was about 130g, and Ajja is about 1400... The rat was just barely larger than the thickest part of her body.

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[JMinILM]

For babies I like to offer both hopper mice and rat fuzzies. Most will take either. I have heard that there is less calcium in the baby rats, so that is why I do it. If a particular snake will only take one or the other I don't sweat it. I have a ready supply of both rats and mice so its not a big deal either way. Once they are big enough to take weaned rats I try to only feed rats.