Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I breed my own mice and sometimes I don't like waiting for the mice to grow up to be the right size, or I may not have the right size at the time to feed so I will feed a snake that normally takes a hopper. Instead I give him three pinkies. Will that affect the over all health of the snake? Is it better health wise to feed the hopper or the three pinkies or is it the same? Thanks a lot!
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2.2 Corns (2 striped and 1 okeetee and 1 blizzard)
1.1 Graybanded
2.1 Banana Cal Kings
1.1 Leopard Geckos (High yellow and Jungle)

Hoppers have less calcium than pinks do, and there are other nutritional differences as well. In general, the older a mouse is (except for worn-out old mice), the more nutritious the mouse is. Doing three pinks instead of a hopper every once in a while isn't going to kill your snake or anything, but they're getting less nutrition from that meal than they would otherwise get.

-Kat
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"You keep WHAT in your freezer?"
"Mice. And rats. If that bothers you, I can call them 'cows' instead."

"Hoppers have less calcium than pinks do"

I'm assuming you meant to say that hoppers have MORE calcium than pinkies, right?

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alstiver@hotmail.com

Current snakes:
1.0 '01 Hypo snow cornsnake (Tesla Coil)
0.1 '02 Ghost (pastel) cornsnake (Banshee)
1.1 '02 Bloodred cornsnakes (Desi and Luci Too)
To be added in February:
0.1 '98 Het Hypo, Het Caramel cornsnake
1.0 '00 Hypo Het Caramel cornsnake

I've never seen a corn snake big enough to eat a kat.

...I mistyped. Pinks are low in calcium, hoppers are higher.

Bleah. Sorry for the confusion.

-Kat
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"You keep WHAT in your freezer?"
"Mice. And rats. If that bothers you, I can call them 'cows' instead."

When my infant corn got big enough to eat 2 pink mice & I couldn't see a lump, I switched her to pink rats. Rats are something like 4x more nutritious than even adult mice.