Reptile & Amphibian Forums

your hatchlings rat pups or rat fuzzies for their first meal? I have some smaller guys that are just a tad bigger than hatchling size and then I have some others that are around the 200-250 gram mark. I think I'm going to give the smaller guys rat pups and the other guys weaned rats. What do you think? I'm getting them from rodentpro but I've never got their weaned or fuzzy rats before so I don't know how big they really are so I can't compare them to my snakes. Do you guys think those sizes are appropriate for them? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Does anyone have success feeting f/t to hatchings? I thought they needed a heartbeat to key in on to start eating.

Jen

I think they need live for the first few meals, but some of mine swiched by their 3rd feeding. I think they need the movement of live prey more than anything, and they're too shy at first to eat with me there to wiggle the F/T. I hate feeding live rat pups so I start switching to F/T ASAP. They seem to do really well...my 250g girls switched on the first try, and now they'll eat off the floor of the tub.

Shelly

Yeah, my smaller guys are still eating live for now but I want to switch them over to f/t because its way cheaper. Thanks for the help.

'bout 90% of my hatchlings have taken f/t for their first meal. Generally the ones I have problems with are the captive hatched babies or the rare ones that just won't eat anything - but in general they do fine on f/t - babies are marvelously easy to manipulate.
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Tosha
JET Pythons

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Tosha, do you heat them up or "tease"? Or just drop it in?
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Jay A. Martin
Jay Martin Reptiles

Yes - they are heated - and wiggling depends on the animal.

I find heating them a little hotter than I do for the adults works better. I also find that they respond better to ones that have been slowly thawed (in fridge) over being quick thawed in water - perhaps they are more fresh less cooked.

As far as presentation - that is where the ability to read your animals comes in handy - they key on different things - it's having the patience to observe and recognize the key - some like them wiggled, some prefer jumped, some like still in their face - others just about their head, some like slow swaying, others prefer you just leave it outside the door and they'll get it when they are ready.

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Tosha
JET Pythons

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I would suggest getting the pups and the weanlings. I found that my hatchlings outgrew fuzzies after their first few feedings. The weanlings may be a tad big for your 250g babies...it just depends where in the size range they fall. I have some 250g girls who can eat large pups or small weanlings. If the weanlings seem too big you could always give them pups for a few more meals.

Hope this helps,
Shelly

hmmm, the only problem is that I want to order food to last me for a long time. I could order the rat pups and feed them on that till they can handle the weanlings. The only problem is that they are sold out of rat pups until this friday and even then they won't ship them out until december 11 which is pretty far away. I wish I could just feed all of my snakes live. It's so much easier, no thawing, just drop it in and wait till they eat it. Oh well, that's life. Thanks for the help, I really appreciate it.

You could check with Big Cheese...I've ordered from them before. Here's the link:
Link

Yeah order from Big Cheese. I've ordered from them and Rodent Pro and Big Cheese is much better. They are packaged better with much less wood chips. Rodent Pro is also often out of a certain size.