Reptile & Amphibian Forums

She's plenty big enough and she's eaten a few after I've rubbed mice on them but she's just not interested. When it comes to mice, however, she is a voracious eater.

I assume there will be no long term harm (outside of my pocketbook) to just feed her 5 to 6 mice at a time instead of rats?

Off to search online for the biggest frozen mice I can find.

I'm having the same problem. I made the mistake of starting my snakes off on mice and I wish I never had. I have converted some of them over to rats, but most of them just look at the rats with a very confused look. I could dangle a rat in front of them for 5 minutes and they wouldn't think anything of it, and then I remove the rat and put a mouse there and have it's ripped out of my hand in seconds.

I learned long ago if you want them to get up to size its a lot easier to feed them what they want to eat rather than what you want them to eat!
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Jason Amos

Ball Pythons
6.40
Dogs
1.1 Staffordshire Bull Terriers

Yep, this week that message finally hit me right between the eyes.

Just keep an eye out for a sale on retired breeder mice. Every once in a while you can find them really cheap and they are pretty big. Two or three of those a week should be plenty.
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John Vandegrift

100% agree, i got sick of the on off breeding schedule so i started breeding my own asf's (even though alot of people hate them its easier to feed the snakes what they want)now the only feeding issue i have is getting them to stop.

One of the problems with ASF's is the same issue this person is having with mice. If your snakes like ASF's, they might not eat for the person you sell them to if you don't disclose they are an ASF eater.

Exactly what I was saying.

I have two adult females that are the same way. They're both early 2010's. One is a 1300 gram pied and the other a 1800 gram pastel het clown. As you can tell by their weight the mice can do a fine job packing the weight on if you give them as much as they want as often as they want it. The pastel took 10 in one sitting last week and was looking for more!!! The pied was on a food strike for a while, but has become very voracious with the mice. Neither of them are going anywhere so I don't care if they eat mice. It's funny how the mice are about the same size of the pastels head so she grabs them with her mouth and only turns her neck to squeeze them. Talking about lazy. Some might say that breeder females won't be able to put enough weight back on for the following year on a mouse diet, but I think that is not always true. If they don't put the weight back on give them the year off.

....try again after something happens....like...they bred,they are full of eggs, you give them a male...or female...or take away male or female...they start eating really well, they change...anything...at times stuff just triggers them to eat, and they eat anything.....sometimes...they just eat mice for 24 1/2 years ...no matter what....

....and you don't have to feed 4 to 6 mice...I used mice all the time..huge mice though , live...and I fed 1 or 2 usually...I did feed maybe 1 to 4 times a week parts of the year...but they don't need as much as you think...

....I had LOTS of mice eating huge balls....

...where do you live?....sometimes old breeders are easy to find...usually not ....

that all made no sense...
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........JY

Hmm, after reading these messages I guess I've been lucky! I start my snakes with mice and them switch to rats and SO FAR haven't had any problems doing that!
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Sed et serpens erat callidior cunctis animantibus terrae quae fecerat Dominus Deus...

Will be nice to have feeding time go from hour long frustrating adventures to a few minutes of a mostly sure thing.

I usually start all babys on fuzzy mice for first three meals then they start switching to rats if i have one that will not alls it usually takes is moving it to a different rack andthey start right on rats.

Nothing wrong with feeding mice...I've raised a couple females to breeder size on jumbo mice...after laying eggs they switched to rats and ate nothing else since. I feed most of my adult males jumbo mice just because they eat more consistently.
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Dale....dgoins222@yahoo.com
www.LibertyReptiles.com

The mice have arrived and it seems like she'll eat as many as I put in there, although 2 to 3 seems like plenty.

Not sure why I put up with all the struggle for so long.

Should have said to myself months ago "Dude, she likes mice. Give her mice!"