Hey Adam,
Sounds like that female is gonna be very happy and well cared for there. She looks great and I'm sure she likes having things to climb around on again. She had that here before I moved her into the shallow-tub rack.
I read the same info about the quail and did a little test run with them also this past year. I didn't do a side-by-side comparison so what I'm sharing is just my experience with one snake. Early this year I bought an '04 Mexican Black, l.g.nigrita, picked up a 100 count bag of those day old quail from Rodent Pro and fed him those exclusively once he was big enough to take them down. As you probably know, MBK's have ravenous appetites and I let him eat as many as he wanted. I normally wouldn't feed my snakes that much, but the quail have minimal fat content and the MBK grew to a very healthy 38" yearling by the end of the summer, never getting the least bit fat until I switched him over to mice (he ate the whole bag of quail). While feeding on the quail, that guy looked awesome. He was muscular, very solid, strong and super glossy. I also noticed that his fecal was minimal compared to mice, which tells me that there is minimal waste when the quail were metabolized, not as much muscle tissue and less fat. As far as the benefits of the beta-carotene and color... he was jet black so I can't comment on that one. I've had MBK's before, one other male included and if you can call this a side-by-side comparison... none ever grew nearly as fast and remained in such great condition as this last guy fed on quail.
The only con I could see is that the snake seemed to process the quail quicker and needed to eat more to stay satisfied... not a lot of meat on a day old quail and it cost more to feed so I gave them up.
My personal opinion, an un-educated one, is that the snake will reach full adult size on mice eventually and be just as healthy if fed properly and it costs a whole lot less. For someone who wants to hurry them up and can handle the expense, there may be some advantage to quail. Let me know how it goes over there with your mexicana on quail, I would be interested to know what you think.
Mike
