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Stay away from the fat beefy rats. MY beautiful het sharp proven breeder is sick because of this. WARNING, dont let it happen to you. Hope she pulls through. Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Not trying to doubt your claim, but how do you know rats are the reason for your boa being sick? Was the animal diagnosed by a qualified vet who said "she must have had a fat rat because now she has........."? I know people that have thought frozen rodents from one supplier or another were to blame for a sudden death, then after necropsy they find out otherwise. Please support this in some way. What are the symptoms? Thank you

.....elaborate for Dan. LOL

I was the one who supplied him with the info, but I will be a bit more thorough. I also just had this problem recently and lost a prized Boa of my collection. I tried to save a few bucks on my rats by switching suppliers and it cost me big time.

There is a rat that is a breed called a "Zucker". It is a rat with a higher fat % then your normal rat and referred to as being "obese". From what I have been told and found while researching it, its purpose of application is for insulin resistance, glucose intolerance, metabolic deficiency and genetic obesity. Bottom line this rat is loaded with FAT!

The problem is that Boas can not digest fat like a Python. You can give Pythons fatty rodents and pigs and they will do fine, give them to a Boa and you are going to have major digestive problems. The Boa will bloat up and get very gassy for starters. When it comes time for them to defecate you will find yourself cleaning up a very smelly, greasy sometimes gray colored stool if not diarrhea. Stephanie has compared it to Crisco shortening you use for cooking! This also ends up being smeared all over the cage and Boa most of the time for some reason. I believe there to be tons of Bacteria in it and it causes for a bacteria bloom inside and outside of the Boa. This is also the reason why people who get bad stools and diarrhea have a Boa go right into a shed cycle and shed out there color. Then WOW!....they now think they have a Calico Boa! LOL I am sure this has happened to a few people and they have not brought it up or figured out what actually went wrong.

The bottom line is these rats can serve a purpose for Pythons and Monitors, but for Boas I think they should be avoided at all costs! You have heard many of the stories on this and other forums about the boa that regurged or had diarrhea and then either died or shed out its color. Well I think this is the cause the majority of the time.

This is just my opinion from personal experiences.

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Interesting stuff....unfortunately now I will be studying every rodent I feed off, lol! What sort of time period are you talking about? Is this something you've seen after just one meal on these rats or a build up over time? I've never had one shed out and go calico, but I've heard of it for sure. One I know of was feeding frozen, have yours been frozen as well? Shoot me an e-mail with some more info if you get a chance and now I'll head off to bed with "Zucker...mans famous pig" stuck in my head!!! Having kids puts weird things in your brain. We going to see you in Tinley again this year???

As far as having to study every rodent you feed off, they really stick out like a sore thumb. I remember thawing them out and saying to myself, "Man that is a funny looking fat rat!" They are about as wide as they are long! LOL They also have a shorter snout then normal.
It is not something that builds up in the Boa over time, but something that happens the week you feed them the rats. They start to digest them and half way through have problems because of the amount of fat the rat contains. I only feed frozen to my adults, so I am only referring to f/t jumbos. I do not think there is any worry in sm-mds, because the "Zuckers" seem to gain the high % of fat when they reach maturity.
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problem from several online rat suppliers or was it from a pet store or what i have had a few rats in my mediums that look hefty but i dont know quite about as fat as long lol but they were chubby lol well when frozen slimmed down a lil when thawed

.....suppliers who send them out in orders. You have to remember the supplier is not doing anything wrong, especially if they are just a reseller of rodents which most rodent suppliers are. This is just a good heads up to not feed them to your Boas. I am willing to bet most of the time they do not even know they are sending them out in orders. They come in frozen and they pack them up and send them out. Most would like you to believe they produce everything they sell you, but the reality is that would be a whole lot of rodents to be reproducing! LOL
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I know you probably can't say who sells them, but can you tell what sizes should be avoided?

That way we won't accidently get a zucker rat. I only feed large rats. I never feed extra large or jumbo. Are the large rats a safe size to buy to avoid the zuckers?

-"I only feed frozen to my adults, so I am only referring to f/t jumbos. I do not think there is any worry in sm-mds, because the "Zuckers" seem to gain the high % of fat when they reach maturity."

http://forums.kingsnake.com/view.php?id=1392631,1392789
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I just had that happen! I fed Friday, and I had a couple of really huge 3XL rats that were clearly obese (bigger than the average 3XL), so I fed them to my largest boa. Yesterday morning I go down and check everyone out, as I always do in the mornings, and her cage was completely slimmed, grey gooey poop everywhere...and the smell...arghhhhh... She was in an 8' cage, and I mean the thing was completely slimmed end to end, and the snake too! I had to scrub the cage 3 times to completely get rid of the film (crisco effect) and tried to clean her as best I could in the snake room wash tub. Thanks for the explanation, I'll keep an eye out for those in the future!

Mark
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uncommonboa.com

I raise my own rats and have done so for years. I have never seen a rat this fat though. The largest rat I have had was a 32oz one I kept for year to show people it was so huge. Frozen that is. But this rat was proportionately long and not a butter ball rat like these Zuckers. But normal rats just don't develop this different type of fat. At least I don't think they do because I love to feed my own huge retired breeders to both my big older girls and the younger up and coming girls. I have yet to see that nasty gray poop.

The Zucker rat is actually a simple recessive mutant fat rat. Rattus norvegicus, as it is called, appeared as a spontaneous mutant and has been used in research in various and sundry problems that plague obese human beings. Zucker rats are specifically bred because they are obese rats. I think the Zuckers may actually develop not only a large quantity of fat but a different type of fat that is not easily digestible although I do not know that for sure. It could just be the disproportionately high percentage of fat to lean muscle that just makes these rats something to stay away from for Boa keepers. Something definitely wrong with those puppies.

Another Zucker rat photo:

Behold the Sumo Rat!

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I laughed for a minute straight when I saw that bottom picture. He is actually a cute little butter ball. Randy W.

thanks for the pics atleast i know what to look for now i didnt think it woul dbe that obvious but holy fat rat lol

You're thinking...all "fat" rats go in the trash, and then you see what exactly to look for....that is a pretty obvious FAT rat as Mike said it would be. Thanks guys!

.
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not exactly the type of retirement someone would hope for. lol

thanks for sharing those pics jeff. and thanks guys for the info.

Holy cow never seen a rat like that... If I got that in a shipment I would take a pic of it and toss it out..

Thanks for the pics and heads up everyone!!
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Jason A.
"Long time Herper, first year Breeder `07."

Damn, that looks like a dead one bloated with gas. Careful touching or it could pop!
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Thanks,

Dave Colling

www.rainbows-r-us-reptiles.com

0.1 Wife (WC and still very fiesty)
0.2 kids (CBB, a big part of our selective breeding program)

LOL, to many snakes to list, last count:
24.36 BRB
19.19 BCI
And those are only the breeders

lots.lots.lots feeder mice and rats

Sorry to hear you lost a prized snake. Just out of curiosity, how long between the nasty poop and/or regurge and death? After cleaning mine up, she's cruising the cage, good toungue action, moving on and off the hot spot, etc. She appears to be no worse-for-wear, but should I still be concerned? (of course I will be concerned regardless of your answer, but you could influence the degree of my concern, perhaps..)

Thanks in advance for your reply,

Mark
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uncommonboa.com

Personally I would just extend the next feeding acouple 3 weeks further out.

Best of Luck !
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TnK

Thanks, I think that's good advice!
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uncommonboa.com

Thanks for that post. I know the current supplier I use for rats occasionally ships me rats that look identical to the pics posted by Jeff and occasionally some of my adults get the stools that you are talking about. I just never have put two and two together and figured that out. Luckily I have not had any losses like you experienced. I have never seen that type of stool in any of my juveniles, which would make since because they never eat the big fat rats. Thanks again for that info, I know I won’t be feeding those rats anymore. Also, sorry for your loss and I hope Dan’s female pulls through with no issues.
Thanks,
Steve Scroggs

Nope just a bad poo.
I recently did this same thing never thought the bad grey poo would have changed my hypos color, Im finally glad to know what happen to him and what to look out for. Just so you all know he is doing great and I would say its been a couple of months since the grey grease poo covered his cage.