Need help with ordering rats...

[AK4900PA]

How big should my balls be before moving up to "small" rats? Is it correct that they won't need anything bigger than that even when full grown? I have 6 snakes being shipped to me next week. 4 are late 05's and the other 2 are 06's. I know the 05's are feeding on F/T rat weaninglings, but I'm not sure yet on the other two. Still waiting to hear back. Anyways, I want to order a decent supply of frozen rats in the next week or so and I'm debating on what sizes to get. Here's what I'm thinking of ordering...

50 pups
50 weanlings
100 smalls

I'm thinking that should give me enough of the smaller rats to get them worked up to the "smalls" without rushing them too much. What do you guys think. Should I keep them on the pups/weanlings longer or should that be enough?

[sweety314]

Depends on who U order from...one company's smalls is another's med..not often, but sometimes.


If it were ME, I'd start there, and get one pack of 10-20 (order qty?) of the mediums. That way my bases would be covered for the snakes I don't know yet.

Since all of mine are feeding FT rats/ or pinky mice, I now have about 65 mice....I'll just feed them two in place of 1 small rat until the mice are gone.

I've been feeding Precious 1 rat fuzzy a week, but weighing him this morning, he's lost weight. He's not big enough around to feed a rat pup/weanling, so I'll be giving him two food items. He hasn't missed a feeding but obviously one's not enough.

If U could, wait until U get the other snakes, (the unknowns) and then use the prey size to snake girth size rule to see if you're initial plans are enough.

Just my

[sweety314]

How big should my balls be before moving up to "small" rats? Is it correct that they won't need anything bigger than that even when full grown? ..........

Uhhhh NOOOOO. Full grown BPs can take a full grown rat. Zeus is on larges, and Freddie is on med but does just as well w/large. She's still just a teeeensy small girthed for large, but she does well on it. < Just a slightly noticeable lump > I've been using my larges for Zeus and Hera until I can get some Jumbos for Hera.

Eventually your balls will need the med and large rats. I've read that some of the ppl here w/the big breeding females feed jumbos. (or did I misread somewhere....Adam??? Jo??? Kara??)

Hope this is a help.


RuLyn

[AK4900PA]

I'm probably going to order from American Rodent Supply. I've heard good things about them and their animals and the prices are very reasonable. Maybe I'll throw in 50 or so rat pinkies for the 06's also until they get a bit bigger. I've seen a few people mention that small rats are more than sufficient for even a full grown ball so I probably won't go any bigger than that. I don't want to gorge them and then have them go off feed.

[AK4900PA]

Anyone else have an opinion on feeding medium, large, or jumbo rats to a bp once they are large enough to take them? I would prefer to feed them the largest rats they can comfortably take. I just want to make sure It isn't going to cause any problems.

[frankykeno]

We top out at smalls or small/mediums for even our biggest female BP who is slightly over 2,200 grams and still growing of course. Part of that is because we feed live so we don't want the snake facing down a large rat in a confined area, part of it is because we'd rather feed a couple of smalls and let the snake regulate what it does want to eat that week - if it's hungry it will take two, if it's not so hungry, it will just take the one and that's fine too.

Think of it this way, in the wild these creatures do not have a weekly feeding schedule so yes they can take quite large prey because that's what wandered by when they were hungry so they nailed it. In a captive environment, they have weekly access to prey so they don't need that big volume all the time. BP's are very self-regulating so if you push bigger prey on them too much, they will simply stop eating for awhile. You just don't see obese BP's.

As far as sizes all I can say is my male BP who is 700+ grams isn't taking smalls yet and he's a good size for his age. He takes big fat weanlings that I raise myself, is gaining beautifully on that and has never refused a meal from the day he took his first one. The youngest BP I have that will take what I'd call a small small is over 2 years old (she weighs a healthy 1,100 grams+)

Personally I'd go with a range of fuzzies, pups and weanlings depending on what these snakes are used to and are already eating and their size. You can always feed multiples if you end up with a few too many smaller rats to use up. Since you don't want to offer them food right off after shipping, you've got time to set them up, check them size wise and put in an order. Back when we fed f/t we could place our order Monday morning and have it at the door frozen hard by Tuesday afternoon (we used www.themousefactory.com)

Go with a prey size about the size of the biggest girth of your snake or slightly less than girth. You want your snake well fed but there's no benefit to having a big distension/lump in your snake after feeding.

[tigerlily]

I second what Jo said.