When to try live?

[MarkS]

I'd feed live. Small or hopper mice are a lot easier to find than live rat pups. Once they're feeding regularly then mix it up with frozen.

[Marrissa]

If she was feeding on rats should I stick to rats? I'd hate to fix one problem with another if she happens to then get stuck on mice. Mice would be a lot easier to get. No breeding those though, but I can't imagine they'd be too expensive to buy live.

[200xth]

If she isn't eating, get her whatever you can. If you can't get a rat, a mouse will be fine. If she ate rats at one point, I don't believe eating a single mouse is going to get her fixated on mice only.

[MarkS]

If she was feeding on rats should I stick to rats? I'd hate to fix one problem with another if she happens to then get stuck on mice. Mice would be a lot easier to get. No breeding those though, but I can't imagine they'd be too expensive to buy live.

Confirmed 'mousers' are actually very rare. I've had a few younger snakes that would only take mice, but once they reached an actual adult size were switched over to frozen rats with very little trouble. Most of my snakes will go back and forth between mice and rats very readily.

[Marrissa]

Okiedoke. I'm excited to see what happens. Waiting for class to get out so I can go to the store. I'll update you guys later. Thank you again!

[BloodStar]

If she was feeding on rats should I stick to rats? I'd hate to fix one problem with another if she happens to then get stuck on mice. Mice would be a lot easier to get. No breeding those though, but I can't imagine they'd be too expensive to buy live.

Hey Marissa!

Generally BPs in the wild eat Gerbils however depending on where you live it may be illegal to feed gerbils to your BP. A lot of people will say that rats are better because they resemble the color of gerbils (brown vs white) however this is an opinion I believe.

Most people move to rats and ween off of mice because once your BP gets big enough you will want to feed rats instead of having to feed multiple adult mice to give your snake what it needs. I would say if you have your BP on rats, to leave her there

Hope that helps!

[MarkS]

Hey Marissa!

Generally BPs in the wild eat Gerbils however depending on where you live it may be illegal to feed gerbils to your BP. A lot of people will say that rats are better because they resemble the color of gerbils (brown vs white) however this is an opinion

Actually this is a misnomer. The gerbils that are found in pet shops are actually from Mongolia and are not native to Africa. There are many rodents that are native to the same area as ball pythons, one of these is the Jird. Jirds are sometimes called gerbils but they are not related to the common pet store gerbil at all.

[Marrissa]

Well went to the store and they are all out of rats. From talking to the girl there they don't breed the rats, they just get them in. They're small adults so definitely can't do that. They had a bunch of empty mouse tanks and several with nursing mothers. They couldn't sell the mothers and the biggest babies they had were weaned. They are supposed to get a shipment before closing (of adult mice and various other sizes), but I'll be back in class by then. So I bought a weaned one and she ate that. It's much too small for her but I'm just happy to see her eat. When I pulled the hide off of her I noticed she looks more triangular shaped than last week. :/ She needs to get nice and round like my other girl.

I have to say that was incredible to witness in person. I really want to breed my own feeders now. I felt bad for the little cute baby but it was so cool to see the circle of life in person. Plus it was good just to see my baby eat. I'll go back to the feed store tomorrow and pick up an adult mouse for her. She looks pretty hungry now.

[Crazymonkee]

Awesome glad she ate something!

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk

[200xth]

Well went to the store and they are all out of rats. From talking to the girl there they don't breed the rats, they just get them in. They're small adults so definitely can't do that. They had a bunch of empty mouse tanks and several with nursing mothers. They couldn't sell the mothers and the biggest babies they had were weaned. They are supposed to get a shipment before closing (of adult mice and various other sizes), but I'll be back in class by then. So I bought a weaned one and she ate that. It's much too small for her but I'm just happy to see her eat. When I pulled the hide off of her I noticed she looks more triangular shaped than last week. :/ She needs to get nice and round like my other girl.

I have to say that was incredible to witness in person. I really want to breed my own feeders now. I felt bad for the little cute baby but it was so cool to see the circle of life in person. Plus it was good just to see my baby eat. I'll go back to the feed store tomorrow and pick up an adult mouse for her. She looks pretty hungry now.

It's always nice to see them eat when they haven't eaten for a while and need a meal.