Reptile & Amphibian Forums

what would be the right number of micerats to go with to breed enough to feed one ball python?

na

Personally, I think it'd be too much effort for one snake.

I agree, for one snake it would not be worth the hassle, effort, cost or odor to breed your own rodents. Almost any combination would be a feast-famine kind of thing. You would either always have too many rats, or rotate between having too many of the right size (Quickly outgrowing the size you need) or none of the right size at all.

I breed my own rats/mice. I run 5 tubs of 1.3 rats and one juevenile tub. I run 8 tubs of 1.4 (sometimes .5) of mice and one juevenile tub. I feed 75 snakes with this (not all are feeding right now, so I have rats outgrowing usefullness as we speak! And a lot of those 75 are neonates, I will have to expand my rodent breeding to accomadate growth early next year) Every week I use approx 45-50 pounds of alph-alpha pellets ($10) about 1/4 bale of pine shavings (whole bale is $5, so I probably spend aout $1.25 a week in pine) about 10 pounds of dog food ($2-3)and about 4-5 pounds of rolled oats($1-2) to maintain those rats/mice every week. I spend approx 4 hours EVERY Monday cleaning tubs, and approx 40 min per day maintaining/feeding/checking rats and mice.

And to top it all off~ they stink.......no matter how clean you keep them, they stink.

It really is not worth breeding your own rodents for 1 snake. If you don't like the prices for rodents at your local pet store, either buy frozen on-line or ask around and find a local breeder. You can purchase much cheaper from a local breeder.

Good luck!

Thanks, Steve