Are many small prey items worse than one big one?

[triplehp4]

I have a bunch of adult mice in the freezer that I feed to my corns, but I am out of rats. I would like to just feed the mice to my 2 carpets as well as the corns, as I buy in bulk and want to use up the mice so I can buy more along with rats to save shipping money when I begin to run low on mice. Anyway, my real question is would it be harmful to my carpets if I fed them several mice instead of one rat at each feeding? This would only go on for a month or maybe two, so it would not be a permanent solution. What are your opinions on this?

[UwabamiReptiles]

It won't hurt them, you run the risk of the carpets only wanting to eat mice but if your carpets are good feeders it shouldn't be an issue. The adult mice have a mature skeletal structure so they aren't bad for them. I've fed adult carpets adult mice in the past and it had no ill effects on my animals.

[Aaron_S]

As said it won't have any ill effects from the actual prey.
One thing to note is some snakes only will take a single prey item per feeding. Don't ask me why, just some do.

[franks]

I do not know the answer. I would be curious if anyone has the nutritional information. It certainly would not be bad for your snake in short term. I am curious about these things:
Increased fur digested
More but much thinner bones

[triplehp4]

Thanks to everybody who replied to my question! I just fed them and they both took 3 mice each.

[CosmicOwl]

From what I've read, the nutritional content of mice and rats is more or less the same. I think a lot of the statements made about rats being better feeders are rooted in confirmation bias.

[Tsubaki]

Eating 3 prey animals does take them more effort than eating one larger one, but it's better than not eating.

[EL Ziggy]

I've had to feed multiple prey items when I had left over undersized feeders and I've never had any issues besides the small inconvenience of thawing and heating multiple mice vs. one rat. Also, an older retired jumbo breeder mouse will have more fat content than a younger, leaner rat weaner even though they'll both weigh about the same amount. Same for a medium mouse vs. a rat fuzzy. I'd rather give my snakes less fat and leaner meat if possible. Unfortunately my kings have been refusing rats lately but pounding down multiple mice and I haven't had the heart to starve them out until they accepted the switch :(. My bulls made the transition with no problems.