Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I know that neonates need to start with small pinkies and that rat pinkies would be to large. But after they get large enough to take a rat pinkie would that be alright. With what I have read some say that rats have a higher fat content, and might be better for them. I would like to stay with rats. As the snakes grows, up the size of the rat. I found out that a large mouse (retired breeder) is about the size of a rat pup. I was just thinking about this and thought I would get your thoughts. I am doing all the research, and finding out what would work best for the snakes.
Thanks
Tom Swihart

Man I just recently built a rat rack for that very reason. I have a large 20 bin mouse breeder that I built years ago. But as you said for larger adult snakes, it takes too long to grow mice suitable to give them a good meal. Rats however are big enough at weanling size. In fact if I don't feed them off soon enough, they get too big for any of my snakes to eat. I also find snakes grow faster with rat pups and hoppers. It really helps if you are pushing a snake to breed in two years instead of three!
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

snakes do grow faster with rats. When I started my jungle carpet python on rats he zoomed in size. But it can also shorted their life span power feeding them to breed.

I not really talking about power feeding. With cornsnake hatchlings are so small, I felt that giving them something with more protein in it would just help them get started. I also have had JCP, burms. I do not like to power feed. But with what I have read on this site, you do have to make a balance between the two power feeding and not feeding enough. I pay attention to my snakes to see how fast a meal last.

Tom S

Well I think in the first three years unless you go way overboard, it all goes to growth. In my opinion the problem is if you continue to power feed after they become larger and have slowed down in growing. But remember we are talking about mainly females who will be used to produce eggs every year and many of them double clutching so they need that high intake. The ideah is to get babies after 2 years as I said but from there after you can slow things down abit maybe even give a female a break every once and a while and don't breed her at all for a year. Everything has to be taken on an individual basis.
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King Snakes! Who can make a better mouse trap?
J Sierra

Yeah, generally when they get large enough to eat rats of comparable size, it seems the rats also have a bt higher calcium content as well from their larger bone structure. They do just fine on large retired breeder mice, but could possibly attain a slightly larger size maybe on the rats over the course of time.

Here is a link for comparing nutritional value on different feeder prey items of different sizes.

Link

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