We've gone the local purchasing of live route for awhile....$2.00 per mouse, $4.00 per rat! Way to expensive for the ball pythons. Now we are feeding a combination of live for the ones that won't take f/t and f/t for the rest (quite price effective through The Mouse Factory).

Quite honestly though when we move in the spring and have more room I'll be breeding rats as we aren't seeing quite the same level of feeding response in the snakes since the switch to f/t. They are doing okay but definitely not as strong feeders as they were before the switch (except for Brann who will eat anything, anytime, anywhere LOL).

I do have a couple of hopefully pregnant female rats right now so we'll see how this small experiment goes.

Rats don't tend to smell anywhere near the level of mice. I believe there was a thread somewhere in the forum about adding vanilla to their water bottles to keep even their minimal smell down a bit more. Good husbandry like with any creature always helps with any of their natural odor.

I mix my own rat food from a combination of lab block, seeds, nuts, dry cereal, large flake oatmeal and a bit of good quality dry dog food (cost effective and little to no waste). They get fresh veggies from whatever is in my fridge as well as leftover pasta, bones, etc. Just avoid any citrus fruits and very high protien dry dog kibble. Once per week they get an end slice of bread dipped in a bit of olive oil (split amongst them) which keeps their coat quality fantastic.

There are some great sites online for homemade rat mixes as well as foods to avoid for rats (check the fancy rat breeder sites mostly for this).


~~Jo~~