Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi. I have a small colony of mice for my corns, kings, milks, and sand boas. I experience the same problem as most of you do with the odor that the mice let out. I heard great things about rats and how they don't stink. I would convert from mice to rats however are rats to big for my snakes. Is it possible for a baby corn or even a juvenile sand boa to eat and digest a rat pup. I would like to hear what you folks have experience in dealing with rats and these snakes. Thanks in advance.-ELvy

You will have to keep the mice for the small snakes. A brand new baby rat pup weighs 10 to 15 grams which is about the size of a hopper or small weanling mouse.

I keep both rats and mice and it is true that the rats have almost no oder compared to the mice.
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Wade's Weptiles & Wodents

Wade is right that your stuff is probably too small for just rats.

A corn snake right out of the egg has a long ways to go before attempting a rat(whole.) You can use a method that some scarlet kingsnake and other fussy or small snake keepers utilize, which is cutting up a pinkie into parts, or "braining" for the smell. I have heard of people feeding mouse tails to snakes too small for pinkies. Haven't tried any of this myself, don't know if it will work with rats and your situation.

I purchased a new corn, texas rat snake, among others a I first started in this hobby. I bred mice after I got tired of spending $1.30 and driving 15min. each way to purchase a single pinky once a week. They were perfect, untill my Carpet Python got to the size where two or three mice were barely enough. This could have been very expensive. I saw this comming from a long way, and started rats before they were neccesary, feeding them to everything etc.

Anyways, I'd wait a while and intergrate like I was doing when this picture was taken now.

Sizes for me typically went

Miceinks .8-3g when born, within a day or 12 hours.
10 days - crawlers ~7-12 g
20 days - hoppers ~10-18g
30 days - sm adult ~15-25g
60 days - adult ~22-35g
This all depends on litter size, mother's condition etc. This is all off of memory, and I haven't been doing much with mass and my herps lately, but I am more confident with my mice weights than rats anywho.

Rats: Pinks 2-5g
10 days crawlers 20-30g
20 days hoppers 35-60g
30 days sm adult 100-150g
60 days adult 200-350
This depends on the same as above variable, but my males grow quicker, my breeding females are 300-400 when not pregnant, my mail was 420g when I got him and now 500g 18months later. Too big for my 2.8kg Carpet Python still IMO, though he could take the females pretty well.

Wait till all of your snakes are past ~60-80g or so before going with pinks. I think that is close to when I started my younger desert king, though he was relucatant to take them over mice of the same size, so I froze them together for a while and now he is fine. My corn, texas rat, desert kings, russian rats, and carpet python have given me very little problems all on rats for the last 9 months, when I stopped breeding mice.

You can cross check mice/rat f/t sites for their weights as well.

Later

Jon

HI, I HAVE 2 CAL. KINGS, AND SOME ANACONDAS. I FOUND MICE JUST PLAIN STINK. I MAINLY BREED RATSFOR MY ANACONDAS MY KINGS WILL GET SMALL RATS GRAMS I DONT KNOW.THE KINGS WOULD EAT TWO JUMBO MICE PER WEEK. SO A SMALL RAT, NO PROBLEM. BE SURE TO PRE KILL RATS ARE A BIT MORE DANGEROUS TO HERPS THAN MICE. AS FAR AS THE SMELL PROBLEM. DONT LET ANYONE FOOL YA RATS STINK, MALES REALLY DO BUT NOT AS BAD AS MICE. I CLEAN MY CAGES EVERY 3 DAYS.AND THAT REALLY KEEPS THE ODOR TO A MINIMUM. GOOD LUCK