Should I move up in 'mouse size'?

[ThuSandman]

Weighed Eddie today and he is 152.5g. I'm not sure how old he is though. I fed him a fuzzy per instructions from the shop where my wife bought him. But am thinking maybe he needs more?

Help Help!

[BT41042]

I'd go with a rat pup or a adult mouse but that's me...Fuzzie is too small for 150 grams...

[Ivyna J Spyder]

Yeah, my new guy is even lighter than that, and he handled an adult (f/t) mouse with no problem.

[Stewart_Reptiles]

Weighed Eddie today and he is 152.5g. I'm not sure how old he is though. I fed him a fuzzy per instructions from the shop where my wife bought him. But am thinking maybe he needs more?

Help Help!

Fuzzies are way too small, hatchling are generally started on hopper mice!

At this weight he will have no problem eating an adult mice or a rat pup if you want to switch.

[frankykeno]

Most definitely move him up. We've got 08 hatchlings here that are eating fuzzy rats easily and are less weight than your snake.

[ThuSandman]

Well crap. I feel bad now, that he's probably still hungry after that. But I should wait 5 days until I feed him again, correct? I will make sure he gets a nice 'appropriate sized' meal Monday!

[frankykeno]

Don't beat yourself up over it. You're certainly not the first or last person whose been lead astray by your typical uneducated pet store employee and their sadly typical underfeeding practises.

Just wait till the next feeding and go up in size. Not a massive jump, just a nice recently weaned young adult mouse. No need to overstress your young snake. See how it goes on that then offer it another one 7 days later and so forth.

Remember when you prey shop to pick a nice mouse (frozen or live) that is well fleshed in it's body, clean and healthy. It's your snake's only source of nutrition to build it's growth and health on so you should always consider prey quality a very important part of snake keeping.

[Houzi88]

Don't beat yourself up over it. You're certainly not the first or last person whose been lead astray by your typical uneducated pet store employee and their sadly typical underfeeding practises.

Just wait till the next feeding and go up in size. Not a massive jump, just a nice recently weaned young adult mouse. No need to overstress your young snake. See how it goes on that then offer it another one 7 days later and so forth.

Remember when you prey shop to pick a nice mouse (frozen or live) that is well fleshed in it's body, clean and healthy. It's your snake's only source of nutrition to build it's growth and health on so you should always consider prey quality a very important part of snake keeping.

That is a really good idea. I'm now going to look for the mouse that seems most active and healthy. So my lil baby can get all the nutrition he can get.

[Argentra]

That's why it's so nice breeding your own feeders: even though they're NOISY (can you tell mine are being so?) and mice are rather smelly, you know your snakes are getting the best nutrition you can give them!

Even if you can't breed em yourself, you can ask to be allowed to hand pick them at the store - thus assuring the best available quality.

[frankykeno]

Even if you can't breed em yourself, you can ask to be allowed to hand pick them at the store - thus assuring the best available quality.

Back when we did have to buy own live prey (we now breed everything our snakes eat ourselves) we did exactly that. We had a word with the pet store we shopped at and were given special permission to enter their rodent breeding area to handpick the rats we needed.

I've had only one store refuse to let us go do that. Needless to say the manager was told we'd take our business elsewhere and we did. Talking with your wallet often works really well.

Another suggestion regarding buying live prey from pet stores is to plan ahead and buy your weekly live prey a few days before feeding day. Set them up with lots of food and water and you'll give the rats or mice a chance to get a good meal and a drink without the competition of a large feeder rodent pet store bin. If it helps them be healthier, better food for your snake, it's worth that effort I think.