Reptile & Amphibian Forums

How much should I be giving this girl a week. I'm used to smaller snakes like garters this is my first decent sized snake. She's taken 2 live mice in the last 12 hours, is that about right or should I offer more?

Not a pit guy, but I have lots of friends and acquaintences who keep them, especially bulls. Two adult mice for a three footer should be OK. However, I would go with small rats 1 to 1.5 times the size of the snakes thickest width (general snake feeding rule of thumb). As your bull gets older and certainly (hopefully?) larger, you dont want to have to feed several mice a week. Your bull could probably take rat pups/weanlings.

Just atm comes down to I don't have anything other than decent sized rats that could hurt my snake, unless I order, and I don't have a ton of money right now to order, but next order I have to add them on.

You can feed multiple prey items and some folks do all the time. However, when the bull is up to six plus feet long, you dont want it to be addicted to mice and have to feed six to eight jumbo adult mice every meal LOL!! The sooner you can get it on appropriate sized rats the better. At a minimum, a three footer could probably take two large or xlarge adult mice with no problems. And please dont take offense to this, but buying appropriate food for you herps is a huge part of the equation to keeping them that can't be ignored. If consistently having to buy decent sized rats is going to be a problem, acknowledge that now and maybe look for a new home for your bull, or release it where you found it if freshly captured. It will certainly grow larger if cared for properly.

No, I just don't see a need in spending another 100 dollars to get rats shipped here when he accepts mice, from everything I have read, mice and rats have the same nutritional value, and if at the moment all I can manage to acquire is mice, I certainly don't see the harm on her eating some mice for a few months.

You are correct, there is absolutely no harm and I didnt mean to imply poor herp ownership on your part. However, multiple mice can get VERY expensive down the road as your bull grows larger, and I do mean potentially six to eight feet long and as thick as your wrist!!! Most folks with larger colubrids and boas/pythons try to get their critters on rats asap for cost reasons and convenience.

Yea, I would normally have no problem with that, however down the road by the time it gets larger ( in a few months ) I'll be moving out to my own place and be able to breed rats/mice so

I have an 08 female bull thats 3' long, she eats 2 f/t rat fuzzys (33-38gms) per week and still acts hungry when finished!
My 2 cents... Jeff

If you keep feeding your bull mice, even eight at a time, unless done every four or five days your snake will remain three feet or may grow to four in a few years at best, but rats will double the growth rate due to calcium from bigger bones and iron from lots more blood comming from rats vs. mice wich are all fur. my 2c JB