What size rats to buy?

[carolineleven]

I'm going to a expo to collect my snake, a 275g male, and it's food. It's on pinkies now. But how much do I need to stack up on? I have no seller near me(in my little Swedish town).

I pre-ordered 10 pinkies + 20 fuzzies + 10 x 30-60g rats, and five newborn chickens.

I want food for atleast 6 months, and obviously I will consider the snakes size and growth when feeding, but in your experience, what do I need to stack up on? I know of the girth rule and the 15-20% rule, but I have no idea how quick snakes grow.

[200xth]

Around 275, mine are usually on weaned rats (30g to 45g depending on batch).

Pinkies and fuzzies are too small for him at that size.

If you feed him one weaned rat (or comparable sized chick) a week, it'll probably take 2.5 to 3 months or so to get him to 500g. At that point you can either switch him to small rats (45g to 70g usually) or just leave him on weaned rats once a week until your next shipment is ready to be ordered.

I feed less than most people do, but if it was me and I was ordering 6 months in advance at that size, I would just get a bunch of weaned rats and chicks. Maybe throw in a few small rats if you want.

[Daigga]

I've got a few around that size. I'm in the process of switching them over to rat pups from adult mice, which are the same size from my seller. I don't know the exact size in grams off hand, I think somewhere between 15 and 30? A few rat pups and weanlings/smalls (the next size up, some people call them differently) should be about what you need.

Pinks and fuzzy mice are way too small for a ball python of that size, as a freshly hatched baby can take a mouse hopper or a rat crawler.

[Sauzo]

As others have said, pinkies are pretty well too small for any ball python. My best advice is if you got a scale, weigh your snake and then get stuff that's 10-20% of the snakes weight. If no scale, just get something that is as wide as the widest part of the snake at the preys widest part(usually the rear hips). You can feed bigger but I wouldn't go anything over 1.5x the width of the snake. Pythons can handle pretty large prey as they are more round in shape where as boas should be fed smaller as stuff too big for them usually causes a regurgitation which can cause all sorts of new problems.

Also it might just be me but if I was to feed F/T, I would only want to get 3 months worth of food so it doesn't sit long enough to get freezer burn or have the nutrients slowly break down from being frozen. Again might just be me but that's why I always just buy live weekly and then just bring them home and kill and feed the same day.

[carolineleven]

I suspected this, dammit. So I ordered too small food. I wonder what the seller will say when I change my order a second time.

Could I feed pinkies and fuzzies sometimes, if I feed a couple of days earlier(than usual) after that? Maybe I could save them for a potential hungerstrike so that everytime I dethaw to then throw away, it won't be the good ones.

I don't want the seller to be annoyed with me and decide not to sell. Because other than newborn chicks, it's beginning to look bad for my ability to feed my cutie on my own.

Here's hoping the snake will like chickens

[200xth]

I suspected this, dammit. So I ordered too small food. I wonder what the seller will say when I change my order a second time.

Could I feed pinkies and fuzzies sometimes, if I feed a couple of days earlier(than usual) after that? Maybe I could save them for a potential hungerstrike so that everytime I dethaw to then throw away, it won't be the good ones.

I don't want the seller to be annoyed with me and decide not to sell. Because other than newborn chicks, it's beginning to look bad for my ability to feed my cutie on my own.

Here's hoping the snake will like chickens

If it's too small, they won't always eat it because it may not register as food with them. You can try, but don't be surprised if it doesn't work.

Would be better just to contact the seller, explain the situation, and change your order.

There's nothing wrong with your ability to feed your snake. You just made a mistake on selecting food. It's easily corrected.

[kitedemon]

I have had every miss size possible. I always order by weights now. The issue is there is no consistent size. I have one supplier whom says small rats are around 40gm and the other whom say around 90 is a small. I have on occasion ordered small rats from both one for sub adult snakes the other for adults. The terms are subjective and not fixed weights are basically absolute and not open for interpretation.

On a side note Royals often love chicks. The Italian predator studies show smaller royals eating birds frequently, and in trees after the small birds.

[Sauzo]

Lol, look at my thread in the red tail boa section on feeding too small of prey. It is a nightmare.