Feeding transition?

[LadyCrow]

Greetings from Lurkerville.

I've been feeding Severus 1 live mouse every week for a while now, & he's eating well & gaining weight (yay!). From the information I received when I bought him, he's now approximately 2 years old, and will be growing as he gets older (as most bp's do).

My question is this. How will I know when he's ready for rats? Is it a matter of his age, or relative size? (ie, I should start feeding him rats at age 3, or when he's 4 feet long, etc)

And in light of that, here's my issue. I can handle giving him live mice. I'll admit that it took me a little while to get used to it, but I'm more or less "ok" w/it now. (I know, if I was so squeamish, why did I get a snake? Well, I didn't know that I was until I fed him. But like I said, I'm fine now.)

In your opinion, would it be ok for his health & well being if I kept feeding him mice (I'd be willing to feed him more often if necessary.) as he grows?

Thanks,
LC

[Adam_Wysocki]

In your opinion, would it be ok for his health & well being if I kept feeding him mice (I'd be willing to feed him more often if necessary.) as he grows?

Absolutely!!!

Ball pythons do not "require" rats in any way and will thrive just the same being fed mice their entire lives. There is no evidence anywhere to the contrary.

If you'd like to increase his feedings, two mice on feeding day (one at a time) is just fine.

I have a bunch of adult ball pythons that have been raised on mice and are doing just as good as the rat eaters!

-adam

[daniel1983]

Like Adam said, feeding mice their entire lives is fine. My ball pythons usually get 2 mice a week(sometimes an extra ). I choose to feed mice because thats what my bps seem to like and I can get mice 10x easier than I can get rats. Good luck with the feeding.

[alexrls]

the only time u should change ur BPs diet is if something is not going right so for example in my case Monty would not eat mice regularly he would eat one week then when ide try to feed him the next week he'd completely ignore it for a week or so


anyways when i switched to rats Monty started eating regularly and is now doing beautiful

also if ur not buying in bulk like for example adam is the sometimes its cheaper to buy one rat than multiple mice at least it is for me

[frankykeno]

We just asked this very question recently in an email. Sometimes the mice we get locally (we feed pre-killed) are a bit on the smallish side and our snake seems still hungry after 1. Basically we are going to try 2 next week and see how it goes. Also we were advised that sometimes when transitioning to multiple prey it's a good idea to offer 1 one week and 2 the next so as not to overdo it too quickly and allow the snake to "catch up" with the new feeding.

If the snake is doing well and will take the extra mouse fine and dandy, if it doesn't want it I'd just try again next feeding day and let the snake show you what it wants. If it's healthy and it's temps and everything are good, it'll eat what it needs to I would think.


~~Jo~~

[Perrin024]

I feed makeeda 4 mice at a time

Ive heard of some balls only striking once though so if thats the case with yours then i would probably feed it a small rat

I get nervous feeding makeeda rats though ive tried it and it takes her a lot longer to kill them than mice and they make more noise which kinda makes me sad....and a rat is more able to fight back then a mouse

[elevatethis]

Just to add to the mouse/rat thing, feeding a pet ball python mice is totally ok. It would be advantageous to feed a ball pythons rats when, for example, you breed them and you want to get a female back up to weight after producing a clutch of eggs. Just easier on the keeper, thats all.

[Adam_Wysocki]

Just to add to the mouse/rat thing, feeding a pet ball python mice is totally ok. It would be advantageous to feed a ball pythons rats when, for example, you breed them and you want to get a female back up to weight after producing a clutch of eggs. Just easier on the keeper, thats all.

For what it's worth, each year I can get my mousers that lay eggs back up to weight just as easily as my rat eaters ... at least in my collection, it doesn't make a difference.

-adam

[recycling goddess]

i'm pulling up this old thread. dexter is almost 6 months old... over 24" and 3" in diameter at his thickest spot. after he ate today he was looking around for another mouse... is it a good or bad idea for me to increase his feeding at this age. i don't want to end up overfeeding him.

[ddbjdealer]

i don't want to end up overfeeding him.

He'll let ya know if you're overfeeding him. As has been brought up many times before... they're very oportunistic feeders in the wild, and they'll eat until they fill up... then they'll fast and use up the stores until its "time" to eat again... At that "size" I would say two mice a week wouldn't be a problem at all...

Do you have a scale? It would help a lot more if you had a weight to go along with the size. At 6 months, I would GUESTIMATE that he could be eating rat pups or rat weans.... but I can't be sure at all... My 400g females all eat weaned rats, and my 900g male eats smalls... everyone under 400g gets rat fuzzies/pups.

Sorry to be so vague... but I really can't tell ya...