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Should I switch to rats with my 1,5 meters yellow rat snake?

R

reptire

New member
I don't feel like 2 mice per 2 weeks is enough. (I realize this isn't a rat snake forum, but this is the only snake forum I frequently visit and they're closely related anyways) You can find pictures in previous topics of mine. If I should switch, how many rats should I feed him?
 
I would stick to mice and stop feeding live if it were my snake. How much does he weigh?
 
Chip said:
I would stick to mice and stop feeding live if it were my snake. How much does he weigh?
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Um, I can't measure his weight, I lack proper equipment. :/ But if I were to stick to mice, I think and adequete diet would be 3 mice per week, and it's enough to clean up his poo thrice every second week already.
Idk, he does have some scars from previous feeding (4 years old - was only fed live at the shop) but I doubt these small mice would hurt him.
 
Live feeding is a huge no no if you value the health and welfare of your snake. Mice can bite your snake and take out an eye if the strike is wrong, and can pass parasites to them. And filming the death of a small scared critter is just plain icky, imo.
Rats are even more dangerous.

Edited to add, any mouse over fuzzy size can fight back and bite. Frozen thawed is healthier, safer, cheaper and more humane on every level. Plus snakes have slow metabolisms, they really only need one prey item a week at the most or they can get fat. And fat snakes die young.
 
I only filmed it because it was a special occasion. I usually feed dead mice, but sometimes I do feed live. I love critters though! I keep four mice as pets actually.
 
I don't know about cheaper, the shop near here only sells live... I feed only 2 per 2 weeks (if I were to feed weekly, it would be 1/week).
The fact that live prey is occasional is evidenced by my other video of my snake where I feed frozen.
 
reptire said:
I don't know about cheaper, the shop near here only sells live... I feed only 2 per 2 weeks (if I were to feed weekly, it would be 1/week).
The fact that live prey is occasional is evidenced by my other video of my snake where I feed frozen.
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Oh, you are from Hungary. Maybe find another shop? (that's what I would do). Or if you really do love critters consider building a humane CO2 chamber. Done correctly the mice will die pain and fear free and you can freeze them to kill any parasites they may be carrying. As a human, I consider it my duty to make sure that any animal in my possession has a good life and a pain free death. At least as pain free as possible. Even though death by snake is pretty quick, the poor things still feel terror and pain and the snake can still get nemotodes and other nasties....
 
I thought freezing didn't kill parasites anyway, it only immobilizes them for a short time. Could you elaborate on this aspect? :)
 
It does kill most of them, at least as far as I know. None of mine have ever seen a live prey item, and none have ever had parasites.
Someone here (Nanci, I think it was) said that they found that every single snake that belonged to someone they knew who fed live always had bad nasties in their stool when viewed under a microscope.
 
Okay, I will humanely kill and freeze rodents from now on. However, I would like some more opinions whether I should feed rats instead of mice. :)
 
reptire said:
Okay, I will humanely kill and freeze rodents from now on. However, I would like some more opinions whether I should feed rats instead of mice. :)
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I keep rats as pets and find them nearly as smart as dogs, and very sweet and friendly and loyal and I LOVE them as a species. So my heart would tell you that they wouldn't make good prey for your scalebaby!

But they are also really fatty, and since they are really too fatty for corns and ratsnakes are really similar to corns my head would tell you that they might not be the best choice.

Plus you run the risk of trying a rat on your boy, and him refusing mice after that forever (it has happened).
 
I kept black rat snakes for years, on f/t mice and the occasional quail. They did just fine on mice, from out of the egg to breeding :)
 
I'm not the most experienced snake keeper on this board. However, if its 4 yrs old, he just needs a maintainance diet. If he's not losing condition, I would continue on the current diet. If I was worried that he wasn't on enough food, I'd buy a scale to know for sure he was maintaining his weight. Change things up if he lost weight.......that's what I would do, FWIW..
 
My yellow ratsnake, Ratbait, is a little under 2 meters long. Even with 3 adult mice every 2 weeks, he has been slowly losing weight. I finally have broken down and ordered some frozen weanling rats for him. I'm hoping he will take them.

If you plan on continuing to feed live, absolutely do NOT switch to rats. They are fat too dangerous and doing a search for Ratbait will bring up his thread detailing the injuries he had when I adopted him.
 
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