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Mice vs rats feeding question

J

jordana951

New member
The person I got my Female cornsnake from told me she always fed her 3-4 adult mice about every 10 to 14 days. My male was fed small fuzzy rats 2 per week. Ive been keeping their schedule the same until The local reptile store has stopped carrying adult mice now and only have various sized rats. The snakes don't seem to care if it's a rat or a mouse. Is there any difference in feeding mice vs rats?
 
0.o The female only needs one adult mouse a week. 3-4 is WAY too many!
The male only needs one adult mouse every 14-21 days.

Typically, it is advised to only feed rats as a treat. Adult mice have fully formed bones, full of calcium. Rat pups don't, plus they are basically little rolls of fat at that size- not good for long term feeding.
 
See that's what I thought. How hard would it be to try and feed them frozen if they've been eating fresh killed their whole lives?The female is 3 or 4 years old and the male is 2-3 years old.
 
Some swap easily from live to defrosted. It's worth trying just by giving a defrosted mouse and seeing what happens. A tip to start off is to make the mouse really hot by dunking it in hot water for a few minutes first then drying it off.
 
I think it's worth a shot. Also ,To me it seems the rats tend to leave a smell behind after they've been eaten that I never smell after a mouse. I'm going to try frozen.
 
I defrost all of my frozen in hot water, which I change a couple of times before feeding them to my snakes.
 
I've never timed it. I just put it in hot tap water, go do something else for 10 - 15 mins, change the water, go do something else for 10 - 15 mins, change the water. If the last water change was cold, I'll do it again, if not, I'll wait 5 mins, then feed to the snake. I like the mousie to be warm. I just use hot tap water.
 
I have two adult snakes that had only ever eaten live before I got them, and each switched over immediately on the first try. I think that yours will be fine switching from prekilled to f/t
 
Update! I found a new little privately owned pet shop in my area that has live and frozen mice and tons of pinkies for my hatchlings when they are ready. I bought one live and one frozen for each snake and they ate both. So if I decide to go with frozen they will eat them! I'm really glad, I was upset when the local reptile store stopped carrying mice live or frozen and only had huge rats or baby rats. Seems kinda silly. And very bad for business! This place is a lot closer and a lot cheaper! I could tell today that they prefer mice.
 
Jordana - That is great! Plus I think it is wonderful to support the smaller shops, they usually are more helpful and cheaper when it comes to feeders. I make a 30 min. drive to get my feeders right now, while my mice colonies build up. And they are cheaper too!
 
jordana951 said:
Update! I found a new little privately owned pet shop in my area that has live and frozen mice and tons of pinkies for my hatchlings when they are ready. I bought one live and one frozen for each snake and they ate both. So if I decide to go with frozen they will eat them! I'm really glad, I was upset when the local reptile store stopped carrying mice live or frozen and only had huge rats or baby rats. Seems kinda silly. And very bad for business! This place is a lot closer and a lot cheaper! I could tell today that they prefer mice.
Click to expand...

What place and what prices, if I may ask? I could use a local place, if it would save on the cost of shipping orders from Layne Labs or be an alternative to the extravagantly priced, but at least decent quality, mice at Kahoots.
 
I'll add, if you ever want to put mass on a snake, such as if a female double clutches and gets skinny -nothing does so better than rats! Just feed a rat the size of the normal mouse meal every other meal for a while. Rat pups contain less calcium/phosphorus, are more fatty, cost more, and smell worse, but they can have a place in our freezers. :)
 
Well she was eating rats pups every week since her first clutch in May so she has put a lot of weight back on. Yesterday I bought live mice and she grabbed it right out if my hand haha. She never did that with the rats! I weighed her yesterday before feeding and she's at 570g. Dad is 650g. What is normal weight for adult corns? I just got the scale when the eggs hatched so don't have any earlier weights.
 
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