Too small to eat rats?

[Bighead]

My ball python is a little over 3 feet long and about 850 grams. I have only been feeding him mice so far. I happen to have 3 rats at the moment that are about 180 grams. Do you think he's too small to eat these guys? Have you guys ever had problems switching from mice to rats?

[snakehunter]

i think your snake is capable of 300g rats maybe 350g, but thats me

[mykee]

You could have been feeding him rats from day one. Mind you not that big, but rats nonetheless. It's a matter of personal taste as to whether your snakes will eat rats after eating mice for so long. However, I would not try feeding your 850g snake 350g rats, bad idea. The only way you'll know for sure, is to try feeding the rats you have. Good luck though.

[scalawag]

I would follow the rule of 1-1/5 the girth of the snake and would definately switch to rats as soon as possible. I followed poor advice when mine was young and now he's over 4ft and won't eat rats. I finally gave up adn feed him Gerbils. Better than 5 mice at a time. Good luck.

[Bighead]

Cool. He's been eating 3 big mice at a time so far. One more opinion would be great though. What you guys are saying is that it will be fine to feed him these rats, right? The biggest one may be about the same girth as him, if not smaller. Thanks.

[sapphire_moon]

It should be fine to feed him those rats. It is ok to feed somethine 1 and a half times bigger than the biggest part of his girth. But some say only feed as big as the biggest part of them.

I have one that refuses to switch to rats, I even tried a live rat, she's just being a "w"itch. lol

[Bighead]

He didn't seem interested in the rat. I guess I'll keep trying. What are the steps I should take to try and get him switched to rats? He is used to eating 3 f/k mice at a time. I tried with a f/k rat. Thanks.

[Bartman]

Isnt the rule of thumb of how big the food item is it shouldnt be much bigger then the thickest part of the ssnakess body?

[sapphire_moon]

thats to be "safe"so you don't over feed or feed to big. A snake can easily take some something extremely large. Infact, your snake probably COULD handle those larger rats. But to be on the safe side should only be fed like 1-1.5 times larger than the largest part of it's body.

To get it to eat, try:

F/t

cutting the nose off

scenting it with some frozen mice (like thawing it out in the same bag as mice)

Actually cutting the mouse open a little and rubbing the blood/guts/brain matter onto the nose/head of the rat and scenting the rest of the rats body with the mouse fur

Dipping the head in HOT water

makeing the entire body of the rat wet

dipping the head of the rat in chicken broth

Braining (poking a hole in the head of the rat and letting brain matter come out)

leave the f/t in the cage over night

leave the snake AND the f/t in a ventilated rubbermaid overnight

try a f/k rat of the same color and size as the mice..... then step him up to larger sizes.

and around one of the last things to do

try a live rat fuzzy (try to get about 12 day old if possible, they have their teeth and claws but are to young to use them and it is just before they open their eyes) then step it from live to f/k then to f/t if you want.