Curious?

[Bartman]

Im curious to know why people who breed and raise up the baby ball pythons even bother with mice. Ive asked this before and the answer I got was its easier. So do they readily take mice over rats even from the start?

I was thinking when, IF, I breed my ball's im not even going to let them have the scent of a mouse EVER. They can forsure take pinky rats right out the shell, so why bother?

If you try a rat on a baby for the first time, and they've never been offered anything else, would they not take the rat right away?

[Bristen]

one of Canada's top breeders explained to me that not many hatchling balls will take a frozen/thawed rat as it's first meal.. I don't remember the percentage, but a very large amount would start eating right away when offered a live hopper mouse (or was that weaned, I forget now)... basically, it is recommended by this particular breeder to first offer live mice, then switch to frozen/thawed mice then to frozen/thawed rats... in total I think they should be eating frozen/thawed rats by their 10th meal if I remember correctly...

Bristen.

[Bartman]

But could you not try to by pass the procedure and just offer rats, or is there a chance they starve to death?

[BoidKeeper]

This year the first thing I offered to my clutch was F/T pinkies. That is what I will always offer first as long as I produce balls. However, they all refused and would only take live fuzzie mice, one took F/T fuzzies. All but one of the four switched over to F/T rats with in the first 10 meals.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Bartman]

How long can you hold out on them before you just need to get food into them? So like keep trying rats until they go, but im assuming they cant really go long without a meal for very long?

[BoidKeeper]

I've heard that you don't want to go much past four weeks. But there is really no need because almost all of them switch over to rats right after they start feeding.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Darren179]

I purchased ten baby balls this year and all were mice eaters. The way I got them switched over that worked first time I tried was get a frozen rat pup and put it in a zip-lock bag. After it has thawed out in warm water rub the rat against a live mouse. Dangle the live mouse infront of the snake just to get him the scent, after this dangle the ratpup that has been scented infront of the ball. This worked on all of mine and after about the second or third time they would take non scented rat pups.

[RandyRemington]

I finally had to assist feed my first baby this year, or at least I'm pretty sure I had to.

For some reason the last two sisters of this late clutch where not starting on their own as quick as I would have liked. At two months post hatch the next to last one started taking live hopper mice on her own but the last sister suddenly lost energy approaching 2.5 months old so I assist feed her a fresh killed fuzzy mouse. I'd much rather they ate on their own and usually they do by 6 weeks old but this one just looked to me like she wouldn't make it more than a few more days. I stuck it in her moth about half way and made sure her teeth where hooked and then gently set her down and closed the cage and sure enough she ate. A week later she was in shed but since the first meal was relatively small (best not to overload a week gut I figure) I went ahead and assist fed a fresh killed hopper after she didn't eat on her own. The third week after the shed she started eating on her own and again this week so seems to be out of the woods.

I have had a few start on live pinky rats for their first meal but not a lot.

[Jayson]

They will take live fuzzy rats as their first meal, you just have to be patient. I have had many baby Balls over the years and never fed a mouse once. Of course if i were a large scale breeder I would likly change my ways as it is more economical to get them eating and sold in as little time as possible.

[mykee]

When I hatched out my clutches earlier this year, ALL but 2 of the 17 hatchlings would only take mice. Within 5 (yes) meals, they were all on rats, but for one who is still a thorn in my side and will only eat a rat after having first eaten a mouse. Bugger.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Live crawler rats (not pinkies) are offered 1st. 70% take them right away on average. This year though, we only had 9 baby Ball Pythons that needed hooper mice for their 1st two or three meals. It was a great year for baby feeding! :)

[malaysianbloods]

The reason people in alberta can't start with live rats and have to start with mice is because rats are illegal in alberta, and we can only get frozen rats here.

[RandyRemington]

True I haven't tried rats all that much and when I do I keep trying mice alternating just to see what they will eat first. Maybe this year I'll have my own rat colony and more incentive to get more of them started on rats.

[Bartman]

I think im going to go with Jeff's idea, and try crawler rats right away.

Just a question, I go by pinky, fuzzy, hopper, small, med, large, so would a crawler be a fuzzy?

[BoidKeeper]

Ah the name game. What one person calls a fuzzy the other calls a pup and someone else calls weaned. That's why I love going by weight. Since I found RodentPro's site I've adopted their names and weights for my rodents that I produce. I bag them all by weight and use the names that rodent pro uses.
Cheers,
Trevor

[Bartman]

So then based on this, Jeff, what would you use first?

http://www.rodentpro.com/catalog.asp?prod=2

[zero&stich]

Good informantion guys.

Thank you.

[BoidKeeper]

Yup, I don't like names at all. I try to just talk in weights when ever I can.
Cheers,
Trevor

[RandyRemington]

Another consideration is that a live hopper mouse can live on it's own and if your baby ball doesn't eat it today you can try again in a few days. If you are buying rather than breeding your feeders you might spend a lot on rat crawlers that don't get eaten and can't live on their own for very long humanly or at all.

Of course even when I'm breeding my own rats I wouldn't be able to put uneaten crawlers back (contamination of rat colony, will the mother except them?) but hatchling snakes should be clean enough to move a feeder from cage to cage starting with the ones that haven't eaten yet until it gets eaten. And even if it doesn't get eaten at least it didn't cost you much (maybe you can kill it and freeze it for a corn snake breeder).

[Bartman]

If they didnt eat the rat crawler I could always kill it and freeze it for later on, when they start going on the rats. Once they eat there first live, im assuming they will switch to f/t no problem right?

As well, I have other things that would be glad to take down left overs :D

[RandyRemington]

Once they eat there first live, im assuming they will switch to f/t no problem right?

That's another topic of hot debate. Again, I haven't tried too hard but haven't had much luck getting ball pythons to eat dead very consistently. Maybe you'll have a few, especially young hungry ones that will do it right off the bat for you. I've got a single kinked up corn from my last year of breeding them (1998) that is my garbage disposal for any dead mice.

[Jeff_Favelle]

Large fuzzies or small pups Bartman. For sure.