Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Over the past few years I got out of ball pythons and only kept one female as pet. I was never that big into the hobby but, had a few that I took care of. Well the craze hit me again, I purchased a het albino hatchling that I already received, and should be getting a five lot next week. Well here are my questions. I haven't raised a hatchling in a while so I would like to straighten some things out.

What would be the right size rat or mouse for a hatchling?

If I have the hatchlings on Aspen substrate, I was thinking of feeding them pre killed off hemostats, what would be the right length hemostat to buy?

If I try feeding them rats, could I imprint them in to only eating those? I tried to feed my previous balls rats but they never went for them, I don't really want to breed rats, their large size kind of scares me and small ones are harder to find around me if I was buying them. Because I will have a few snakes, thawing them is not good for me. I bred mice before and had no problems, so I was thinking of just keeping the snakes on those, If I do end up doing that, how large of a mouse colony would I need to feed about 7 snakes?

Sorry for such a long post, just want to make sure they are well taken care of.

Thanks, Dave.

dont worry about rats for now since you got a while before balls need to switch to rats. As far as a breeding colony, mice will give you like 1000 in a year if you let them going so i would just not worry there either, a couple breeders is more than too much. I would start hatchlings on large fuzzies and it wont take long before hoppers. i would not use aspen bedding i like to keep my cages clean and astro turf is 19 c a sq ft at menards..its cheap to replace a ball python cage every time they soil it, plus they cant burrow and burn themselves since you will be using undertank heat. there really isnt any other option. you know the drill i think...the size mouse is kind of common snese...look how big it is and dont go really any over the thickness of the body to be ideal. rats will probably need to be in the diet and i think ft is the way to go since you can get them cheaply in bulk...but to each their own.