Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Well I searched and searched and searched some more and I can't seem to find this anywhere answer yet.

I got out of snakes a few years ago when I had to take off for college. Prior to that I raised show mice and a marked rabbit breed and it was just a logical way to get rid of the cull stock so I could grow my mice to whatever size I currently needed bonk on the head and throw in the freezer. It was a pretty good system for the most part.

Well since I'm now out of school and remembering how much I liked having my corns and ball pythons but not raising mice anymore I've decided to look into the frozen rodent market as at $5 a mouse locally I don't think buying fresh is an option and I am certain I don't want to raise mice at the moment. The problem as I see it is the only affordable way to get frozen rodents is in pretty large quanities. How long to frozen mice/rats keep safely for reptiles in a deep freeze?

My second question is I always find information on the max size a snake can munch down. Is there anything wrong with feeding 2-3 pinks or fuzzys in place of a hopper? I can't imagine snakes in the wild would stop with a single fuzzy if they stumble across a mouse nest. Is there any reason if my snake(s) outgrows a rodent size I can't feed multiples of a smaller size until I run out and need to reorder?

The timeframe I've heard is 6 months in the freezer for best freshness, but I've yet to have problems other than sometimes pinkies will get freezer-burned.

You can feed a snake a larger amount of smaller food items, but it won't grow as fast... I've found the easiest way to use up extra items of smaller size is to have multiple snakes.

I've kept mice in the freezer for over a year, but I also vacuum seal them, so that may be something you want to look into.

I think it's better to feed multiple small food items rather than 1 big one. I think you'll find a lot of people who agree. They are just easier to digest than 1 big mouse.

On the other hand, you may be faced with my problem...
It may just be my male (right now he is still in mating mode), but he won't eat anymore than 1 mouse per meal. I've been feeding him 1 hopper recently because I still have a ton of hoppers left, but he could easily take a large weanling/small adult. He can stand to lose a little weight, so it's no big deal feeding just hoppers, but if it was a different snake I'd probably be tempted to abandon the hoppers and feed weanlings.

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alstiver@hotmail.com

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