Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Comparative sizes of two rodents. The one that is white is a one month old mouse. VEry Very small! The black and white one is a 8 day old rat. Look at how big it is! It is also very much heavier. It has the compact weightiness of probably about 30 grams.

It still does not have its eye open and has no teeth. Tehre is zero chance it will hurt a young Ball Python.

I just am falling in love with rats as feeders. They are the way to go!

Click here to see rats, gerbils and Mice and also copperhead and Rattle snake!

Not only that.. they smell better... they're friendlier most of the time...they're bigger..and they don't usually eat their litters *laughs* I kept mice for 6 months.. never changed the colony around at all.. and I NEVER got a single litter out of them... so I switched to Rats.. *heh* Them I get too many litters out of *laughs* But its alright, I'm feeding a Savannah Monitor.

Great to hear from a fellow convert. I am a very recent convert myself!

In fact, I am such a new convert, I don't have rats in my house yet. What I did was an experiment: The neighbor is an 11 year old kid. He offered to house rats at his home if I would buy them. Well, I bought some at a reptile show on 7 Jun 03 for $2 a piece. One rat was already pregnant @ that time. So, as of today, we already have one litter of 7 (was nine) 1 week old, good for eating fuzzies!

What is more is that one of the other female is also about to drop a litter. So in two short weeks, we already got a jump start on raising rats: 1 litter already born and one litter is one the way (possibly even tonight!).

We are really pleased with the rats. We got a great jump start into the whole process and for cheap too! ($2 a piece!)

Very very pleased!!!

When this litter matures, I will be moving two or one females from this litter into my home. I will share the male from the 11 year old's house so I don't have to have my own male.

happy feedingS!

Pictures of rats taken today:

Click here to see rats, gerbils and Mice and also copperhead and Rattle snake!

I will definately start breeding rats when all my Gopher snakes are full grown. Right now I rely on the mice for large pinks and fuzzies for one of my snakes and weaned mice for two others. Wow, I can get rat pups the size of adult mice days after they are born and they won't even have teeth to harm my snakes!!!
Thanks for the insight.