Food Question

[Auskan]

The usual "food progression" seems to be to start out with mouse pinkies, move up to fuzzies & hoppers, then to rat pups etc. My mama rat just had a litter & last night I decided to weigh them. They ranged in weight from 6-10g. Then I weighed my mouse fuzzies, & these too ranged from 6-10g. So I guess I'm wondering, instead of going from a mouse pinky to a mouse fuzzy, why you wouldn't progress from a mouse pinky to a rat pinky, if rats are more nutritious than mice?

[Removed_2815]

The "pinky" forms of both rodents in question are very high in fat, and not much else. "Fuzzy" mice, I would imagine, are a little more nutritionally sound than a rat pinky as the fuzzy mouse is a litte more developed in terms of internal organs and calcified bones.
Cheers,
R

[Katt]

Rats aren't as easy to get as mice and double the cost!

[lolaophidia]

Rat pups will put weight on a snake if fed over a long period of time. They do have a higher body fat than an active weaned mouse and less of the fiber (fur). When I've had snakes that came in underweight, I fed them rat pups to get them going before switching to mice or weanling rats (depending on what I had more of and the type of snake). I don't think I'd use them as an only life long food source for a natural mouse eater, but they have helped me to switch larger types of snakes (carpet pythons and larger colubrids) over to rats earlier by skipping the adult mouse stage.

[Andy_G]

I thought more fur was bad because none of it can be digested... I have never ever heard of it being a fibre source...*shrugs*

[lolaophidia]

Right. Pretty much anything undigestible that passes through the system is fiber. Not always a good thing when you're trying to put weight on an animal. I like the fact that rat pups have less fiber. But if you have a snake that doesn't need the extra weight, rat pups can be a little fattening. Better to feed a more nutritionally diverse prey, like an adult animal.

[Andy_G]

Ya learn something new every day! :)