Feeding to much?

[Eric Alan]

Just curious, but why do you stop the 10%-15% rule after 500g?

Because the larger a BP gets, the less the math makes sense. To put it in perspective, you'd be feeding a 3000 gram female a 300-450 gram rat. Just no...

The "rule" (or, more appropriately, the guideline) was likely made after someone realized that it just happened to work for hatchlings. It's a nice way for new keepers to learn properly sized food until thy can eyeball it with more experience. It was not made because it is the proper nutrition for a BP based on anything scientific.

[Crowfingers]

Yeah, that's what I thought, but was wondering what weight everyone else stops using that "rule". Mine has been on smalls for a while now. He is around 625-650 grams currently, and the rats that I ordered last time ranged from 53-94 grams, and I still had a few wean rats left (44-50g).

I feed the smallest first so I don't waste any. The 75-90 gram rats still look much wider than his widest point, though I admit that I still find it hard to measure his food that way (especially since the rats are frozen and kind of flat). I've been feeding every 5 days since he was being offered things less than 8% of his body weight, planned on switching every 7-10 days when he eats things around 8-10% of his body weight, I have never felt the need to feed more than 10% of his weight... Luckily he finished all the weaned rats last week and went into shed again, so he'll be on the smaller smalls for a while. By the time I get to feeding the 75+ gram rats he will be very capable of handling them (I probably baby him and worry about prey size a little too much too)

[PitOnTheProwl]

Yeah, that's what I thought, but was wondering what weight everyone else stops using that "rule". Mine has been on smalls for a while now. He is around 625-650 grams currently, and the rats that I ordered last time ranged from 53-94 grams, and I still had a few wean rats left (44-50g).

I feed the smallest first so I don't waste any. The 75-90 gram rats still look much wider than his widest point, though I admit that I still find it hard to measure his food that way (especially since the rats are frozen and kind of flat).

So your weights are a good bit off.
31-45 is weaned
46-79 is small

The weaned are not that far off but 90 grams isn't a small

[Eric Alan]

So your weights are a good bit off.
31-45 is weaned
46-79 is small

The weaned are not that far off but 90 grams isn't a small

Here's the size ranges that I use for rats (from Big Cheese):

• Pinky: 3 - 9 grams
• Fuzzy: 10 - 19 grams
• Pup: 20 - 34 grams
• Weaned: 35 - 49 grams
• Small: 50 - 89 grams
• Medium: 90 - 179 grams
• Large: 180 - 279 grams
• etc...

[PitOnTheProwl]

Wonder when they changed their sizing?
Probably trying to under/over cut the others.

This is the same chart I have used from the beginning.
Almost everyone I know goes by this as well.

[Eric Alan]

Wonder when they changed their sizing?
Probably trying to under/over cut the others.

Not sure. They've had those same ranges as long as I've been ordering from them, which has been for a few years now. It could easily be a marketing play. It doesn't bother me any since they are shifted to the upper end, which I feel like saves me a little bit on feeders in terms of $/g. At the end of the day, I'm still picking out appropriately sized meals for the collection anyway.

[Crowfingers]

I got them from Big Cheese - they were all just in the higher end of the range, so were the weans most were 42-53g. I think they must go by age when they process them and just take an average range, I imagine that they don't weigh each individual rat after gassing it. When I realized the prey was so big I did a custom order of 8 rats from perfectprey.com. I called and asked if they could make sure the rats I ordered were between 50 and 65 grams to give his time to catch up to the 75+. They were really nice and all eight rats were in the range I asked for and the quality was great; I ended up with a pack of 4 wean rats (49-52g) in the highest range and 4 smalls (57-66) in the lowest part of the range.