Wade is right that your stuff is probably too small for just rats.



A corn snake right out of the egg has a long ways to go before attempting a rat(whole.) You can use a method that some scarlet kingsnake and other fussy or small snake keepers utilize, which is cutting up a pinkie into parts, or "braining" for the smell. I have heard of people feeding mouse tails to snakes too small for pinkies. Haven't tried any of this myself, don't know if it will work with rats and your situation.



I purchased a new corn, texas rat snake, among others a I first started in this hobby. I bred mice after I got tired of spending $1.30 and driving 15min. each way to purchase a single pinky once a week. They were perfect, untill my Carpet Python got to the size where two or three mice were barely enough. This could have been very expensive. I saw this comming from a long way, and started rats before they were neccesary, feeding them to everything etc.



Anyways, I'd wait a while and intergrate like I was doing when this picture was taken now.



Sizes for me typically went



Mice:Pinks .8-3g when born, within a day or 12 hours.

10 days - crawlers ~7-12 g

20 days - hoppers ~10-18g

30 days - sm adult ~15-25g

60 days - adult ~22-35g

This all depends on litter size, mother's condition etc. This is all off of memory, and I haven't been doing much with mass and my herps lately, but I am more confident with my mice weights than rats anywho.



Rats: Pinks 2-5g

10 days crawlers 20-30g

20 days hoppers 35-60g

30 days sm adult 100-150g

60 days adult 200-350

This depends on the same as above variable, but my males grow quicker, my breeding females are 300-400 when not pregnant, my mail was 420g when I got him and now 500g 18months later. Too big for my 2.8kg Carpet Python still IMO, though he could take the females pretty well.



Wait till all of your snakes are past ~60-80g or so before going with pinks. I think that is close to when I started my younger desert king, though he was relucatant to take them over mice of the same size, so I froze them together for a while and now he is fine. My corn, texas rat, desert kings, russian rats, and carpet python have given me very little problems all on rats for the last 9 months, when I stopped breeding mice.



You can cross check mice/rat f/t sites for their weights as well.



Later



Jon

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