Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am growing up a group of 2004 ball pythons for a breeding project. Some feed only on mice and some have been swithed to rat fuzzies. A good friend of mine (which has produced some awesome ball pythons) mentioned that his mouse eating snakes have never produce a good clutch. What are your thought on this.
I appreciate any info that you can provide.
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Take Care
David
My Email
www.prehistoricpets.com

I've had mouse eaters, and I have rat eaters. Bar none, rat eaters get bigger, quicker.

Rat eaters do get bigger quicker (in my experience). But if fed appropriately they don't necessarily stay bigger.

Mouse eaters will need to eat more mice to maintain and gain weight than rat eaters. If you don't mind feeding 3-8 mice per snake, per feeding they should do alright. If this isn't your thing, switch them over to rats now. The sooner you do it the easier it is.

As far as one being better for fertility than the other the only argument I've heard about this is that the rats have more calcium in them, but if you are feeding enough mice I would think it would balance out.

It is usually more economical to feed rats though. My local pet shop sells adult mice for about $2 a piece and small rats for about $4 a piece.
One small rat is about equal to three adult mice.
Two small rats at $8 or six adult mice at $12. The difference can add up fast if you aren't breeding your own.
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It's actually not that I love or even like snakes. I just hate rodents.

NUTRIENT COMPOSITION OF WHOLE VERTEBRATE PREY (EXCLUDING FISH) FED IN ZOOS

Ellen S. Dierenfeld, PhD
Heather L. Alcorn, BS
Krista L. Jacobsen, MS

Please refer to Tables 1-6 on Pages 9 through 16

Bottom line: Rats vs. mice....Rats excel in all respects, but unfortunately, snakes don't always read the research stats and some will only partake of the smaller, less nutritious, smelly little mice. I personally raise both for my own snakes, but only resort to feeding mice when it's absolutely necessary. HTH!
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NUTRIENT COMPOSITION OF WHOLE VERTEBRATE PREY (EXCLUDING FISH) FED IN ZOOS
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I've had both rat and mouse feeders. In general, rat feeders grow faster but there are always exceptions. My '03 female pastel is doing great and lately she is showing a preference for mice. Since I buy frozen thawed it doesn't cost me any more to feed large retired breeder size mice or small to medium rats. I have a group of mousers right now that range in size from 1600-2000 grams. If they were not good feeders, they would not have that weight. As far as calcium, I want to say that rats most likely provide more but that doesn't mean that feeding mice will result in a calcium deficiency.

Thank You
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Take Care
David
My Email
www.prehistoricpets.com