Switched from mice to rats today

Zelg · 05-05-14, 03:53 PM

without a problem. My little ball gobbled it up even faster than his mice. I was worried after reading about so many issues and having to scent with mice and blah blah blah. Thankfully I dont have to worry about it quite yet

anyways, thread is just a "woohoo!" from me, for me. Hope you all are doing well today.

jpsteele80 · 05-05-14, 04:15 PM

Congrats, a sure sign of growth

Jim Smith · 05-05-14, 04:21 PM

I think the resistance to switching from mice to rats is really on a snake by snake basis. I have one Honduran Milk Snake that absolutely refuses rat pups unless the are heavily scented with mouse brains and another that has no problems gobbling down whatever I put in front of him. I'm glad that your transition went smoothly.

Zelg · 05-05-14, 04:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jim Smith

I think the resistance to switching from mice to rats is really on a snake by snake basis. I have one Honduran Milk Snake that absolutely refuses rat pups unless the are heavily scented with mouse brains and another that has no problems gobbling down whatever I put in front of him. I'm glad that your transition went smoothly.

wow....so just out of curiosity, how did you discover that scenting with mouse brains would be what does the trick? Is that a well known thing? I'm wondering how someone goes from just getting the scent of a mouses outsides and gets to brains instead.

Jim Smith · 05-05-14, 04:37 PM

I think I read it on one of the Herper websites I frequent. It's called braining. I simply take a F/T pinkie that I've thawed out for one of my smaller snakes and make a slice in the skull with a sharp knife. Then I smear what comes out all over the thawed out rat pup. It only takes about 5 seconds and it's not nearly as gross or messy as it sounds. I normally wouldn't use rat pups, for my Hondos but the person I got some of my food items from sold me a bag of them and I didn't want them to got to waste.

Zelg · 05-05-14, 04:48 PM

Very interesting. thanks

**EL Ziggy** · 05-05-14, 09:02 PM

My snakes have been raised on f/t mice but I'm going to switch to rats as well. Getting tired of having to feed multiple prey items. They've all eaten rat fuzzys a few times before so I'm thinking it should be an easy conversion. Just have a few more medium mice to finish off. Not sure how true it is but I've heard many snakes have a noticeable growth spurt once they're on rats. We'll see

Zelg · 05-05-14, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EL-Ziggy

My snakes have been raised on f/t mice but I'm going to switch to rats as well. Getting tired of having to feed multiple prey items. They've all eaten rat fuzzys a few times before so I'm thinking it should be an easy conversion. Just have a few more medium mice to finish off. Not sure how true it is but I've heard many snakes have a noticeable growth spurt once they're on rats. We'll see

I've heard that as well but my main reason was that mice were starting to just not be big enough I think so I figure if hes gonna start taking rats I might as well start him on a smaller one and find out. Sounds like you'll have no problem switching.