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Which is better?

Which is preferred for your Corns primarily?

  • Total voters
    60
DaGiant

DaGiant

DaBig Guy retired to MS
I have been in a heated discussion in another reptile forum about which is better to feed to Corn Snakes MOST of the time.
Mice vs Rats?

I will give mine a rat on occasion, but primarily Mice.
 
Mice. They're less expensive than rats =P And the snakes seem to enjoy them (well, they eat them and I've yet to hear a word of complaint), so why switch?
 
I like mice for baby and adult corn snakes, but I prefer hairless rat pinkies and fuzzies to feed to my subadults. I think those are easier to digest and seem to make the snakes grow faster. Often picky snakes seem to prefer the hairless baby rats to equal sized furry mice as well.
 
I prefer mice for all corn snakes, because mice are good for any size corn snake.


_____
0.1 10' amel sonaran gopher
0.1 11'buttercream
0.1 snow corn
0.1 11' florida
0.1 white sided brooks

1.0 10' albino crimson corn
1.0 sunglow amel
1.0 ghost corn
1.0 11' sunkist
1.0 10'abherant cal kin
 
I was on rodent pros website and was reading their nutrition chart and noticed that the rats have more protein than mice, but also more fat. I think they only sized rat that you can feed a corn snake without it getting fat are the weanlings. (This is all according to what I read on the chart no other sorce told me) But most people who feed rats normally feed those medium rat that you can find in a pet store.
 
lilmike227 said:
I was on rodent pros website and was reading their nutrition chart and noticed that the rats have more protein than mice, but also more fat. I think they only sized rat that you can feed a corn snake without it getting fat are the weanlings. (This is all according to what I read on the chart no other sorce told me) But most people who feed rats normally feed those medium rat that you can find in a pet store.
Click to expand...

The problem with this is that weanling rats are already on the very large side for your average corn snake, at up to twice (or almost so) the weight of an average adult mouse (the largest most corn snakes need). Besides the fact that a higher percentage of that weight is fat, it's already too big for a great deal of corn snakes to ingest safely and easily, much less without getting very fat.

Anything larger than a weanling? Yeah, no, I can't imagine even the largest corn snakes in captivity handling anything larger than a "small" adult rat, tops. Heck, my 800 gram kisatchie corn and my roommate's old 900 gram corn--neither could safely handle more than a weanling, or slightly larger. Incidentally, both came in somewhat overweight from being fed nothing but weanling rats.

Hands down, mice over rats. At least for me. Every adult corn snake I've met fed exclusively on rats has been overweight. Not necessarily obese, but chunky enough to be concerned. Besides that, they just plain thrive on plain ol' mice... Why go to the trouble, expense, and deal with the pitfalls (that fat content, again) of juvenile rats when mice have consistent, tried-and-true success?

... I think I need to take classes on how not to be long-winded. LOL. There's my $.02, anyway. :)
 
My 24 year old's never eaten anything but d/f mice and is fine, as is my 19 year old. The 19 year old used to get supplements when I bred her but hasn't for years. The Old Fella never has.

Corns have been kept in captivity for a few generations. If there was anything harmful about an all-mouse diet, we would've found it and been singing it from the rooftops by now.
 
Yeah I completely understand that. But I am one one of sceptical people who you wont convince otherwise. I mean nothing against you or anyone else who feeds 100% mice but I have owned or taken care of quite a few different pets and variety seemed to be a key role in their diet ( makes stronger immune system) and that has kind of stuck with me. Now if a snake wont eat anything but mice there is no point in trying to force it, but if it will take other things why not give it a shot? Just my two cents :)
 
All my snakes eat mice. None of them are big enough to eat the rats they sell at the pet shop (adults) and they cost so much more. I'm not going to order them online when I can get adult mice for much cheaper and all my snakes eat them fine.

My only snake that I would consider feeding a small hairless rat to, is one of my kingsnakes. He does not like mice with fur. If I cave and give him pinkies he will eat them by the handful! But give him an adult mouse with hair and he will refuse for weeks before finally eating a mouse with fur. Heck I've even contemplated shaving the mice lol. Only thing stopping me from trying baby rats is that I can't find any and if I buy online I would have to get bulk and I have no idea if he would even eat them. So I could spend a bunch of money and have it go to waste.
 
Ya know, when Rodent Pro is back up and running, you should try their hairless mice. They are the same price as white or dark mice. I buy them for my hognose, who pass a lot of fur eating regular mice. They are full sized mice with no fur.
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I also love the poll results, 38-1. There's always one. You could start a poll asking, which is better to use for corns drinking water; water or Dawn dish washing liquid? -and one person would vote against water.
 
Thanks for the tip! I didn't even know they had hairless mice lol. If my king snubs them I know my other snakes will eat them so they won't go to waste.
 
Having 4 baby corns and 2 adult corns. I'd have to say mice for feeding size variety. You get a colony of mice and can breed them the sizes you need for your corns. If I had a snake bigger I'd probably have to go bigger I guess.
 
When I first started raising colubrids in large numbers over ten years ago, I only fed mice to the snakes that weren't big enough to eat a rat pinkie. Once they were able to take a rat pinkie they never got another mouse. I only fed once a week and the largest rats I offered my adult colubrids were pups. I never had any luck raising my own mice but I could crank out rats no problem and so that was the logical food source for my animals. I never noticed a difference in the animals that were fed mice vs rats other than that once the snakes were big enough to eat rats they grew much quicker. I had perfectly healthy adults that laid nice fertile clutches every year and I never thought twice about feeding rats.

I feed mostly mice now after seeing the research that has been done on the subject but I have a few snakes that won't eat mice or rats. I have one corn that only eats f/t quail chicks and a couple cal-kings that only eat f/t chicks. Those snakes are just as healthy as the others in my collection.
 
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