Reptile & Amphibian Forums

For the past several months I've been trying to switch my kunashir island ratsnakes from f/t mice to f/t rats. With so many mouths to fill in my herp room, it's much easier to deal just with different rat sizes when buying online. Plus, it seems that my colubrids in general seem to fill out once they've switched.

Tonight both my '03's and '04's took fuzzy or pink rats! It's like they made a group decision that rats are good (LOL). Up to this point three out of four held out for mice. Someone once told me that asian ratsnakes tend to prefer mice over rats, so I almost gave up. Has this been true in anyone's experience? I'm curious as to the food preferences of different species of asian ratsnakes? Thanks for sharing!

regards,
althea

My Gonyosoma sometimes seem to exhibit a preference for mice over rats. However, if I get rats from a friend of mine they seem to be in much better condition and even my pickiest Gonyosoma eat them readily.

For whatever reason I seem to be able to get mice in good condition. Rats are a bit more trouble.

I believe my friend gets his rats from Big Cheese and Rodent Pro - whichever has them in stock.

Just throwing out a possibility. I have no idea if its actually true or if this applies to the species you keep.
-----
Current snakes:

1.1 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Silver/Yellow)

2.2 Gonyosoma oxycephala - (Green)

4.3 Gonyosoma janseni - (Black)

My Anomala will only eat mice, I have never known them eat rats although they have been offered.

My adults will eat around 2 - 3 Mice in one sitting but have never shown any interest in rats or chicks for that matter.

My Male Schrencki will eat anything you put in front of them as will the Taenuria.

I have a pair of Taiwan Beauties that switched to rats without issue. However, they're more a garbage disposal-type snake in that they're so food motivated they'll even eat when in shed. Probably has to do a lot with the body type of the snake. The more slender rats probably tend to go more for lighter prey vs. the big honkers like Taiwans that probably eat anything they can subdue.
-----
Matt Campbell
25 years herp keeping experience
Full-time zookeeper
Personal collection - 21 snakes (9 genera), 20 lizards (4 genera), 6 chelonians (2 genera)

n/p