Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi everyone

I'm told that I should get my snake on rats as soon as possible due to nutrient content being higher.
Is this true?

And what would be a good feeder rat size to feed a 3 month old snake?
She is taking frozen/thawed hopper mice like its nobodies business as it is so I'm sure she'll have no problem taking on rats.

Thanks!

I start my hatchling's on hopper mice for their first three feeding's, then I'll switch them to crawler rat's( if they will, lol) right after. Without weight's or a pic with a size comparison, hard to say what it can handle, but any baby Ball should be able to handle mouse sized rat's.

Not sure about size name of rat. A little bigger than the largest point of the snake.

I feed mice to ALL my hatchlings until they can take a small rat (around 600 grams). I think the nutrition of the prey animal has most to do with a high quality food being fed to "them". My good feeding ball pythons routinely reach 600 grams at 5 months -- on mice. All my animals switch over to rats without missing a beat. Don't be afraid to feed large mice -- or 2 if that is easier. Best of luck!!
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Bill Buchman

I get my balls on rats asap. I don't know if one has more nutrition over the other but I do know that my med and larger balls could suck down mice for days and with rats it only takes one med or large and it cost much less. Also because the rat is a larger bulk of meat it takes a little longer to break down and seems to be retained a little better then mice.

As stated in a previous post for the size of the rodent look at the thickest point on your ball then look at the rodent and picture it laid out not all curled up in a ball eating on something or what not. When the snake eats it should have a modest lump but should not look like it just ate of foot ball.

Hope this helps,
matt