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Switching to rat pinks

C

carmich132

New member
My normal corn (Jellybean) is pretty good size and has been taking mice hoppers for a while, but I was thinking about switching him over to rat pinks (b/c I'm considering breeding rats for my other snakes). Do you think this would be a problem (maybe less nutritional value, etc) and do you think it would be a hard switch from mice to rats for the snake?
 
I wouldn't recommend doing this. Mice will suffice a corns whole life. I have fed rats to corns for 2/3 month periods before and they put on too much weight too quick. Rats are much fattier than mice. I ended up switching everything back as I did not like the muscle tone of my females.
 
Actually I feed mine both... When they are large enough to eat a rat pink, I feed them the pinks, then when they get to hopper size, I feed them mice, when they get big enough to eat a weanling rat I switch back to those, and alternate with adult mice. I only have one snake out of 71 that only eats rats, and I've already fooled him by defrosting a jumbo mouse with the rat pinks when I was out of med rats... I wouldn't feed only rats as Elle mentioned, just because of the high fat content, they're like snake candy and I don't see the harm in moderation...
 
I wonder if anyone knows the fat content of natal rats as compared to mice and rats. Up until recently I've been feeding mostly mice with rats and natal rats occasionally.

Currently, I am breeding ONLY natal rats so as the mice in the freezer run out my corns wil be on an exclusive natal rat diet.

Just looking at ther body shape and size they seem closer to mice than rats, but that's just guessing.
 
http://www.rodentpro.com/qpage_articles_03.aspt

That might help. :)

Mouse 23.6% crude fat
Rat 32.6% crude fat
Neonatal rat 23.7% crude fat

So yeah, neonatal rats are more similar to mice than to rats. Juvenile rats are between the adult rat and the rat pinks. I'm breeding rats, and I plan to give multiple young rats per feeding to keep my corn and my king nice and trim. Instead of one 20g mouse/rat, I'll do two 10g rats. This way, I have a shorter "upkeep" time for the babies. :) Keep in mind, though, my plan only works if your snake will readily take multiple food items per feeding, even with the random (and unfortunate) distractions... which mine will.

Just some things to think about with rats vs. mice. Good luck!
 
I feed rats to all my animals. As soon as they get too big for mouse peach fuzzies I switch them to rat pinks then to rat fuzzies then to rat pups. I was told rats of these sizes can be more nutritional because they're more meat and less hair than the same size mouse.

I don't have a large collection, but none are overweight and all have good muscle tone and grow quite well on their diet. I've thrown some the occasional mouse, just to see if they'd eat it and they have. I plan on switching them to adult mice once they've done most of their growing since a life time of rats can be a bit taxing on the pocketbook.
 
I'm getting ready to mover Gaia up to fuzzies but I had noticed that rat pinkies have a larger size range, 3-8 grams, than fuzzies. (This is from RodentPro) Peach fuzzies are from 3.10 to 4.40 gms. and fuzzies are 4.50 to 7 gms. Having to buying bags of 100 means that Gaia may eat only 14-40 out of each bag before moving up in size. If I get rat pinkies then I can sort the sizes and feed her accordingly.

If I am understanding you all - it's okay to feed corns rats as long as you don't do it all the time. Every now and then I can throw a mouse pinkie in so she won't forget what they taste like.

How does this sound??????

:crazy02:
 
I switched Tiaga to small rats for awhile because she was very much underweight. You could see the ridge in her backbone and that made me angry that I was such a poor mom. I fed her small rats for about 6 months and boy did she pack on the weight!
I now have her on 1 large(or jumbo) mouse a week and she is maintaining her healthy weight which I'm very grateful for... I wouldn't feed rats as a regular meal, just when you have one that seems to not keep a proper weight with mice... Good luck!
 
snakemom1961 said:
I switched Tiaga to small rats for awhile because she was very much underweight. You could see the ridge in her backbone and that made me angry that I was such a poor mom. I fed her small rats for about 6 months and boy did she pack on the weight!
I now have her on 1 large(or jumbo) mouse a week and she is maintaining her healthy weight which I'm very grateful for... I wouldn't feed rats as a regular meal, just when you have one that seems to not keep a proper weight with mice... Good luck!
Click to expand...

So the 3-4 months Gaia may be on rat pinkies will be okay. I've had her since February (2+ months) and she's moving up so if she grows at the same rate she should only be on rat pinkies for 3-4 months maybe. thanks for your help.
:crazy02:
 
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