Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My son's Eastern Kingsnake was one year old this last spring. She is 2.5 feet long, and has been eating frozen adult size mice easly for a few months now. She is getting hungry in less than a week and having a poop in just a few days after feeding. I feel like it is time to go up a size, so today we came home from Petco with a frozen "small rat". This thing looks way too big for her! I need ya'll's reassurance that she is O.K. to eat it! Or should I be doing something else? Advice from this forum has always been so helpful. Thanks, Jennifer, Mitchell, and Sunwreath.

Several adult mice per week are fine for it.

Eastern kings are always hungry.

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Mike
KingPin Reptiles Inc.
www.kingpinreptiles.com
^ Updated 6/1

My Cal. Kingsnake would eat every other day if I gave it to him. I fed him a 46 Gram mouse (large adult mouse) and not even two days later he is looking around the cage. My feeding schedules are every Sunday and Wednesday/Thursday for my Tri-Colors. He is around 7 years in age 52.5” long and about 385 Grams. Personally I would try to feed him at least once a week, if you can two medium/large mice twice a week.

I have a hypo cal king that is the same size, and what I call a small rat from my rodent supplier would be physically impossible for him to eat. I feed these small rats to my biggest pines and bulls. The small rat, or what the Petco called a small rat, that you purchased, may very well be smaller. Still, if it seems way too big for you, I would go with your gut feeling. It is always best to play it safe in these situations, as regurging is very hard on snakes and sometimes can be deadly.

My supplier has small, medium, large, and jumbo sized adult mice. I feed my hypo cal king small adults at the very most. Your snake may be showing that it also has a high metabolism. The other poster who responded had a good suggestion, by feeding it two mice. I personally would feed it two mice slightly smaller than the one size mouse to see how it does at first.

Take care!

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Genesis 1:1

I have a large collection of brooksi and prefer to feed rats. Thing is some brooksi that have been on mice don't recognise the rat as a food source (especially if they have been fed FT mice all along)some of them even turn and run the other way. I got to learn which of my brooks kings will eat rats and the ones that don't cost a whole lot more to feed. I think this is what you will experience. If your snake takes the rat then thats great. You solved the problem of spending tons of money on mice because they are so much smaller.

Oh and your snake will do fine eating the larger rat. Put it in and try, and see. Florida kings can really put the big meals away. Just be forwarned that it will still need frequent feedings because your snake is trying to G R O W as fast as it can from this point on. Once it reaches full size it will slow down. Younger brooks will do that at that size and its important for its health to really feed them a lot at that size..

SOooo...

Feed the rat.

The worst thing that can happen is he either does bot eat it or can't get it down. Either way you learned something that can be very valuable for you and your snake in the future.
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

In my humble opinion, I have found lab rats to be more easily digested by snakes, in general, compared to lab mice.

I can't be specific to kingsnakes, because many of my Cal kings refused rats, and I don't have Eastern kings. The few that did eat rats were given larger meals, mainly 'cause rats are big. Of the other snakes, and namely rosy boas, which are by far the most likley snake to get a regurgitation from eating large prey, they would eat very large meals of thawed rat without problem.

Since we can't see the snake and rat to compare size, you really need to use your judgement. But my opinion remains that rat is likely easier to digest than mouse of similar size (though as stated, with kingsnakes I don't have the numbers to make much of a comparison.)

Let us know what happens if you do feed the rat.
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Mark

a small rat is a big animal to feed to a Yearling.1.5 times the snakes girth is an average size meal.he will take it in the future though

Thank-you for all the input, it has been very helpful.
I would like to post a picture of the snake vs. rat but my camera is broke.
I do believe the rat is more than 1.5 times bigger than the girth of the snake at this time, so I'll just hold off for now and feed mice more frequently. How long are those rats good in the freezer?
THANKS again!

1.5 bigger meaning 50% bigger or 150% larger than the snakes girth.

POst a pic. It probably will take the rat no problem. Like I said before if it doesn't get it down you didn't lose anything except the price of the rat.
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"Yeah ya told me, and ya wrote it down too. But how the hell am I supposed to remember!"

How long it lasts depends on how you store it.
I've had good luck with wide mouth screw top mason jars in the freezer. No freezer burn and the ice doesn't taste funny.