Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Ok, is there anything better than rats to feed to my ball python. Would Gerbils or Hamsters be more nutritious?

Not sure what's better for your python, but if you raised the rats yourself, you would know if the rats you raise got good quality lab block, and you could gut load them before they meet their demise.

What would you gut load them with?

I prefer African soft furred rats for my BP and corn snakes. Normal rats get far too big for a BP or corn snake to eat, but ASF rats only get to about 80g max.

I don't know how nutrition compares to mice or rats, but my corn snakes seem to be growing faster since I've put them on a diet of mostly frozen/thawed ASF rats.

I've never had a problem with my BP feeding on the ASF rats, and they ARE it's natural prey. She's been fed exclusively ASF rats since I got her in March, but took an adult mouse easily last feeding, so I'm hoping she doesn't get "imprinted" on the ASF rat diet and doesn't refuse regular mice or rats.

Gerbils would be more nutritious due to their superior protein to fat ratio, but gerbils are faster, more agile, and go into defensive mode more readily than rats. If your snake prefers live, do not give him gerbils. Especially because they will often refuse other prey items once hooked on gerbils. But if he's eating well on f/t and you can find a dependable supplier, sure, go for it. And hope that there are still dependable frozen gerbil suppliers around for the rest of the snake's life. So, probably a good switch to make if your snake is twenty and you want him to make thirty, but maybe not if he's only two.
Hamsters, I'm not sure about the nutrition of. They seem pretty lean, so the short-haired ones are probably good, but some of the fluffier ones have got way more hair in relation to their mass than the snake's system should have to deal with. And, again, they can do some real damage if served live. My carpet python loved them when she was younger, but that's because carpets drop down on their prey from above and get a controlling grip on the back of the skull right away. A ball python would approach at tooth level, and a hamsters teeth are set at a more damaging angle than a rat's.
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0.1 Coastal Carpet (Boots)
0.1 Western Hognose (Bebe)
0.1 Cane Toad (Hengo)
0.1 Solomon Islands Ground Skink (Minerva)

Well, I'm not sure about the "damaging angle" of a hamster's teeth, but their bite-pressure is nothing compared to an adult norway rat (the common feeder type). The same with a gerbil. I will agree that gerbils are more likely to get "upset" faster than a rat, but they are more likely to flee than to attack whereas rats that are scared can go into attack mode pretty quick. Hamsters, it seems, are always in attack mode... at least the ones my fingers have been unlucky enough to meet.

Also, hamsters are anything but lean. Unlike rats, hamsters naturally hibernate. It is still ingrained into them to eat and eat until they have enough fat to support hibernation, even if they aren't every going to need to hibernate. Their diet is made up of mostly high-fat foods like seeds and nuts (in captivity especially) and they rarely are given room to burn it off. A hamster fed a low-fat diet and given room and a wheel might be another story. Unfortunately, hamsters must be housed one to a cage (or they fight ferociously) and a good fourth of them (at least) succumb to wet-tail bacteria or cannibalism as babies. They aren't very economical to raise as feeders.

Gerbils are more lean. They are also highly active and need a lot of room unless you want them chewing on each other (which they seem to do. I've had a colony of ten that had maybe twenty legs and 5 full-tails among the lot due to them being chewed off by the other gerbils... but that seemed to be an inherited trait, the chewing of other gerbil limbs, so I'm not sure if anyone else has experienced it). Female gerbils will fight each other madly, so keeping tubs of one male to four females like we do with rats will not work well with gerbils. Also, gerbil litters are much smaller than rat litters.

I've been bitten by angry gerbils, angry hamsters, angry mice, and angry rats. There is no comparison. Rats win in terms of damage inflicted hands down. A REALLY angry adult male rat could take off part of your finger. If it is about what is safest to feed live, I'd definately say forget the rats. Stick with mice, they have the least bite of them all.

If you want to raise them yourself and want something easy, I'd say go with rats. They rarely cannibalize their litters, don't succumb to many diseases (although respiratory disease can be prevalent, and is mostly due to improper bedding, overcrowding, or dirty conditions)and are fairly healthy food.

If you want something that will be readily taken by a ball python, go with African Soft Fur Rats or Gerbils.

I would assume that high-fat hamsters would put weight on faster, but I'm not positive.

A truly healthy diet is a varied diet. Unfortunately most ball pythons don't like change. If possible, I would feed a combination of all the avaliable feeders I could get. Gerbils, rats, mice, hamsters, african soft fur rats, chicks, quail, (depending on the size of your snake...) guinea pigs, rabbits, etc. are all good foods when combined with each other in a feeding regimine.

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~Sara~
5 ball pythons
1.0 Black-lined plated lizard (Lizzy Butt)
0.1 Burmese Python (Pixil)
lots of Rats
1.1 Dogs (Ozzie and Mandy)
0.1 Cat (Isis)
0.0.1 Synodontis Catfish (Big Spotty Fish)
0.1 Convict Cichlid