I feel forced to write this, because I
recently had a customer blow up at me. He showed me a skinny
ball python, so I told him to feed it rats to fatten it up.
He came back about a month later, screaming that it
regurgitated it, and he wanted a mouse. I told him he needed
to buy the bacteria/enzymes to replenish what the snake
regurgitated in order to properly digest food. He got even
madder and left. WELL.. I had a misinformed guy write to me
on my forum. I guess he didn't want the facts, and avoided
emailing me or calling me directly, but instead left his
ignorance for others to read. Well, he said his snake
regurgitated the "mite infested" rat. First of all, 99% of
rats and mice have mites. They do not get transferred to
snakes, and I buy rats every week, so there was no way for
me to know. I only buy my rodents from very reputable
breeders, the same ones that 5 other pet stores around me
and at least 10 big snake breeders buy from.
Secondly, the first thing I asked the guy
was how hot he keeps his snakes. He said room temperature!
Can you believe that?! No heating devices!!! Also, he keeps
his house at 68-72 degrees.... Beautiful... He told me
his snake hated the heat and loved the cold...
I've had more problems with mice biting
snakes than I have rats. I feed rats to my female snakes. It
puts more fat on them, and rats are more nutritious anyway. BUT
- if you plan on breeding your male snake, try to keep him on
mice unless he's over 4 feet. Mice put less fat on the snakes,
and a lot of the time male snakes on rats won't breed right away
because they are too fat and lazy. I feed all my male balls up
to 800 grams mice. I do have one male that's about 700 grams,
and he only eats rats. Well, he didn't breed for me last season
when he was ready, and I can only expect it to be because he was
too overweight.
The controversial aspect is this: Rats are
scientifically proven to put more fat on snakes, and that they
are more nutritious. Well.. there's nothing proving that snakes
even absorb all the nutrients in a mouse, so what's the point of
feeding rats if it can get them too fat? My reasoning is because
once a snake gets over 1500 grams, that's a lot of mice to feed
it a week. All my snakes take pre killed, so I don't even worry
about the snake being bitten at by the mouse, but it is
something to keep in mind in case you ever leave a prey item in
with a snake.
Summary:
Mice: Keep snake slimmer and more active.
Adult mice are too small for bigger snakes.
Rats: Put more fat on snakes. This is good
for females that are going to breed. They are more nutritious
than mice. They get MUCH bigger, and are better for bigger
snakes. They can actually put too much fat on a male ball python
to the point where he will be too lazy to breed.
